Corrections Inmate Employment nurseries focus on giving prisoners marketable skills they can use to get a job when they’re released.
A chance to grow: Prisoners learning nursery
management skills at Wanganui Prison Nursery.
National Nursery Manager Michael Queree has been a nurseryman with Corrections for four years. He's dedicated to the point of stopping to collect seeds if he passes an attractive pittisporum on his day off.
“Our nursery instructors all take a passionate interest in the work they do – that’s why they make such successful teachers,” he says.
Michael and his team of three Corrections Inmate Employment (CIE) instructors work at Wanganui Prison’s extensive nursery, which covers five acres and specialises in growing natives such as kowhai and harakeke.
Nationally, between 115 and 125 prisoners work in Corrections’ six nurseries. The instructors at Wanganui teach and supervise around 40 of these. Many of the prisoners study for NZQA horticulture unit standards – most at level two, but some go as high as level four.
CIE nurseries’ share of the market is very small (we grow about 0.1% of the plants sold in New Zealand) but our focus is on giving prisoners marketable skills they can use to get a job when they’re released.
“Some of the guys become very skilled. I know of one who’s now the production manager for a nursery in Auckland. I doubt he’ll never see the inside of a prison again,” says Michael.
This emphasis on training recently had a boost when Wanganui nursery’s newest instructor, Major Meta, started in early June. Major is an ex-horticulture tutor from UCOL and has a special remit for developing a targeted training programme.
Significantly, the nursery at Wanganui was once outside the wire, but was moved inside the prison’s security fence.
“This means we can train prisoners who wouldn’t be allowed outside because of their higher security classifications,” says Michael.
The move to bring prison nurseries inside the wire is a national one, says Industry Manager Scott Gretton.
“The work and training is a valuable intervention for prisoners – perhaps even more so for those with higher security classifications. At the same time we’re also giving ourselves a bigger pool of prisoners to tap into,” says Scott.
Michael says he and his instructors liaise closely with Corrections officers and unit managers to find suitable prisoners who’ll benefit from the work.
“You get a good match when there’s a good relationship between custodial staff and instructors,” he says.
“A nursery is a very positive environment to work in; there’s never a lack of work, and the same person can start a job and see it through to the end. That’s very fulfilling.”
Moving the nursery also meant Michael and his team could set the new area up to replicate a real working environment as closely as possible. He points to the neat rows of glossy-leaved plants and then to a pristine potting area, everything swept tidy and the benches so clean at the end of a shift that you could eat your dinner off them.
“The Department recognised the useful work being done here and invested significant capital, and both the staff and prisoners know that – they take real pride in this place,” he says.
National Nursery Manager Michael Queree.
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ISSN 1178-8453