Auckland Region Women’s Corrections Facility (ARWCF) is the second of four new corrections facilities to open as part of Corrections’ Regional Prisons Development Project, commissioned to cope with increasing prisoner numbers.
Chief Executive Barry Matthews says ARWCF, located in Wiri, Manukau City, will add 286 beds to the prison system and is needed to accommodate a growing number of female prisoners in the region.
“ARWCF has been built with design features that are intended to be the most effective in terms of safety, security and rehabilitation,” says Barry.
He says the design is consistent with modern prison design internationally and Corrections’ experience in managing New Zealand prisons.
“ARWCF and the other new facilities are deliberately designed quite differently from traditional prisons,” he says.
“The facility is basically a big, secure enclosure with a range of separate units. Accommodation units are clustered around central service facilities such as kitchens, industry areas and programme rooms,” says Barry.
The entire facility is enclosed by a highsecurity perimeter fence with a single controlled point of entry.
This secure perimeter allows a more open internal prison environment, where prisoners can move through a planned day. The combination of the features protects the public and staff, reduces stress and prisoner management issues and provides a more effective environment for treatment, training and work programmes.
“This new prison environment will help Corrections staff to motivate prisoners to change their behaviour,” says Barry.
“While the daily routine of prisoners will be carefully managed, ARWCF has been designed to create a more normalised environment,” he says.
“Prisoners will be encouraged, and expected, to be responsible for activities such as getting to employment activities on time, attending rehabilitative programmes or visiting the health facilities when necessary.”
High-security prisoners will have more restrictions on what they can do and where they can go. Access to certain areas or zones for prisoners at ARWCF will depend on their security rating.
Access restrictions may change as prisoners move through their sentence and demonstrate higher levels of responsibility.
ARWCF incorporates some womenspecific features, including a family-friendly visiting area and nursery room so approved prisoners can bond daily with their babies cared for in the community. Some prisoners may also be eligible to live in a self care unit with their baby until it reaches six months of age.
ARWCF will also allow women prisoners from the upper-North Island to serve their sentences nearer to their family/whanau allowing them to more easily maintain contact with these important support networks.
“There has been a shortage of prison beds for women in the upper-North Island and this has meant we have had to send prisoners to other women’s prisons, sometimes in Wellington,” Barry says.
He says the rehabilitative, training and employment programmes operating in other New Zealand prisons will be undertaken at ARWCF. These are aimed at providing prisoners with the skills and confidence they need to live successfully in the community on their release.
Employment opportunities offered at ARWCF by Corrections Inmate Employment (CIE) will provide prisoners with employment skills, training and formal qualifications to help them find work on release from prison.
“As well as self-sufficiency activities, such as cooking, laundry and grounds maintenance, ARWCF will also provide business-like activities such as a textiles workshop and a distribution centre for prisoner purchased goods,” says Barry.
Some prisoners will also have the opportunity to participate in work gangs or release to work.
“It is important to remember that all but a handful of the very worst prisoners will eventually return to the community at some point. Therefore we need to prepare them so they have the opportunity to get on with their lives and become productive members of society.”
Barry says this is one of the reasons Corrections has worked closely with Puukaki ki te Aakitai, the kaitiaki (guardians) for the site.
“It is a sad reality that Maori are overrepresented in the prison system. In fact, nearly 60 percent of all female prisoners are Maori. Puukaki ki te Aakitai have an important role to play in working with Maori prisoners at ARWCF and they will be actively involved in rehabilitation and reintegration programmes.
“Their involvement has been and will continue to be vital to the prison’s management, operation, programmes, delivery of services and spiritual well-being of everyone involved.”
Testing and validation is being carried out now and the first prisoners will arrive on the site in August. ARWCF is planned to be operating at full capacity by the end of the year.
The Department of Corrections is building four new regional corrections facilities to accommodate increasing prisoner numbers. ARWCF is the second of the four new corrections facilities to be completed - Northland Region Corrections Facility opened in March 2005.
Despite challenges presented to the construction team, ARWCF was completed on time and to budget.
“We initially planned to build a 150-bed facility. However, the rapid increase in the women’s prison population resulted in an increase in the size of ARWCF to 286 beds. This required the original design and work plans to be completely redrafted in a very short timeframe,” says Chief Executive Barry Matthews.
“A second challenge was the rain - the construction team was faced with the wettest April ever recorded. Despite these issues, the Facility opened only eight weeks later than originally planned for the 150-bed facility.”
At peak construction times, 600 people were employed on the site.
Like all the new corrections facilities, ARWCF was constructed using a Collaborative Working Arrangement, or CWA. This brought Corrections together with industry leaders in an integrated project delivery team that shares the risks and benefits of the construction process.
Corrections Inmate Employment (CIE) also played an important role in the construction of ARWCF.
“The new corrections facilities have provided prisoners with valuable employment opportunities,” says Barry.
Prisoners manufactured 2,855 pre-cast panels incorporating 2,500 cubic metres of concrete for ARWCF at the concrete yard at Auckland Prison. This is equivalent to approximately 625 truckloads of concrete.
Prisoners also constructed cell doors and furniture sets for the cells and security grills for cell windows in the High Security accommodation blocks. Barry says constructing four new corrections facilities simultaneously is a major undertaking.
“The Regional Prisons Development Project is one of the largest construction projects in the country at present and when completed, the four new facilities will add over 1,600 new beds to the prison system.”
Construction of the Otago Region Corrections Facility and the Spring Hill Corrections Facility is well underway and both of these projects are on track to be completed next year. The Northland Region Corrections Facility has been operating successfully for over a year.
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ISSN 1178-8453