Open Letter to Government: a Call to Stop Prison Building
We are criminal justice researchers calling on the government to stop the build of
a new prison at Waikeria. The proposal to spend a billion dollars on this venture
is at odds with its explicit commitment to reduce prison numbers. To allow time
for a national conversation about alternatives, we propose a moratorium on all
new prison construction.
Never before have so many New Zealanders been incarcerated. Since 1986, the
number of prisoners has swelled from 2,700 to 10,700, a four-fold increase. This
puts us out of step with the rest of the world. While our crime rates are broadly
similar to other countries in the OECD, our rate of 220 prisoners per 100,000
population is well above the OECD average.
The rapid expansion of our prisons disregards the overwhelming evidence that
people sent to prison are more likely to re-offend than people with similar
offending given community sentences. Contrary to the official goal of
“corrections”, prisons foster criminality and often intensify the problems they are
designed to address.
The design of the proposed prison at Waikeria also ignores international best
practice. The new facility would ultimately hold up to 3000 people, making it
triple the size of any other prison in our country. Prisons on this scale are
extremely rare around the world, despite being relatively cost-efficient, because
it becomes impossible to humanely manage thousands of people confined in the
same institution. Prisons that focus on rehabilitation are small, allowing for close
relationships between staff and prisoners. In Scandinavia, capacity is typically
between 50 and 100 people.
Prisons designed for rehabilitation also keep prisoners close to their home
networks of support, encouraging family and community integration. This is the
core principle of Corrections’ own Regional Prisons Policy. Yet the proposed build
at Waikeria would locate prisoners from Auckland and Hamilton deep in rural
Waikato, 16km south of Te Awamutu, leaving them socially isolated and severing
relationships with the outside world.

 The Waikeria build will undermine Prime Minister Ardern’s Waitangi Day
commitments and intensify the mass imprisonment of Māori. Our criminal justice
institutions were brought to the country from outside in a process of colonisation,
and were used to advance the dispossession of tangata whenua. Today, Māori
make up 50 percent of male and 62 percent of women prisoners, despite being
only 14 percent of the general population. This is a symptom of long-term
inequalities and the destructive role of the state in too many Māori communities,
including the historical removal of Māori children into abusive state care. The
more our prison system grows, the more it becomes an engine of inequality.
Those emerging from behind the walls bear the brunt of homelessness,
unemployment, family break-up, and exacerbation of mental and physical health
problems. Their children are more likely to drop behind in school and, later, to
become prisoners themselves.
Given these negative consequences, we are concerned that Ministers have
stated there is no choice but to build the prison. This is not true. The same policy
levers that were used to expand prison populations in recent times are available
to reduce them. The 2013 Bail Amendment Act rapidly increased pre-trial
detention, doubling the number of people held on remand. Likewise, the 2002
amendment to the Parole Act closed down access to early release so people are
serving much longer in prison. Reversing these changes in legislation could
quickly ease overcrowding and remove the need for new prison building.
Reducing prison numbers through bail or parole reform will take political will and
leadership. Yet there is nothing radical about this approach: it would simply mean
returning to some measure of what is normal in our own history and in most
other countries around the world.
Now is the time for innovation and a search for alternatives, not more prison
building. We need an informed debate about the future of criminal justice and
interventions that can promote community safety, meet the needs of victims,
and help people behind bars rehabilitate. We should be wary of alternatives that
may expand a criminal justice system already operating on a historically
unprecedented scale.

 We call on Ministers to stop the prison build at Waikeria. We support a public
commitment from the government to ban all new prison construction, allowing
time for a national conversation over the best methods to achieve a fairer, safer
society.
Signed,
Dr. Lynzi Armstrong, Lecturer in Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington
Dr. Trevor Bradley, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Victoria University of
Wellington
Professor of Law, Warren Brookbanks, Auckland University of Technology
Dr. John Buttle, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Auckland University of Technology
Dr. Antje Deckert, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Auckland University of
Technology
Dr. Russil Durrant, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Victoria University of
Wellington
Dr. Fairleigh Gilmour, Lecturer in Criminology and Gender Studies, University of
Otago
Dr. Fiona Hutton, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington
Dr. Moana Jackson, Director, Nga Kaiwhakamarama I Nga Ture
Associate Professor of Criminology, Jan Jordan, Victoria University of Wellington
Ti Lamusse, Research Coordinator, People Against Prisons Aotearoa
Dr. Nessa Lynch, Senior Lecturer in Law, Victoria University of Wellington
Professor of Criminology, Simon Mackenzie, Victoria University of Wellington
Professor of Restorative Justice, Chris Marshall, Victoria University of Wellington
Dr. Liam Martin, Lecturer in Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington
Professor of Indigenous Studies, Tracey McIntosh, University of Auckland
Dr. Alice Mills, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of Auckland
Dr. Sarah Monod de Froideville, Lecturer in Criminology, Victoria University of
Wellington
Dr. Tom Noakes-Duncan, Lecturer in Restorative Justice, Victoria University of
Wellington
Associate Professor of Criminology, James Oleson, University of Auckland
Dr. Deborah Platts-Fowler, Lecturer in Criminology, Victoria University of
Wellington
Professor of Criminology, John Pratt, Victoria University of Wellington

 Dr. Khylee Quince, Senior Lecturer in Law, Auckland University of Technology
Dr. Carisa Showden, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Auckland
Julia Spelman, Board Chair, JustSpeak
Associate Professor of Criminology, Elizabeth Stanley, Victoria University of
Wellington
Dr. Rebecca Stringer, Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Gender Studies,
University of Otago
Associate Professor of Criminology, Tamasailau Suaalii-Sauni, University of
Auckland
Dr. Juan Tauri, Lecturer in Criminology, University of Wollongong
Associate Professor of Law, Yvette Tinsley, Victoria University of Wellington
Professor of Law, Julia Tolmie, University of Auckland
Dr. Laumua Tunufa'I, Lecturer in Criminology, Auckland University of Technology
Dr. Robert Webb, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of Auckland