Late last year the Government passed a new law that would allow contract management of prisons to operate within the corrections system in New Zealand.

Many of you will recall that Auckland Central Remand Prison was managed by a private contractor between 2000 and 2005, and achieved many successes. Some of the good ideas that the company brought to ACRP were adopted by the Department and are still being used today.

This exposure to new ideas is one of the main reasons the Government is keen to have a small number of prisons under private management again.

The people of New Zealand rely on us to provide the best Corrections service that we possibly can, and that means always looking at ways things can be done better.

In May last year, I travelled to Victoria and Queensland in Australia to see contract managed prisons for myself. I saw prisons which were operating well, which had enthusiastic and committed staff, and which were trialling new rehabilitation programmes which hadn’t been trialled in the state-managed prisoners.

I talked to the heads of corrections in both states who confirmed to me that having a few prisons under contract management had a positive impact across the entire corrections system.

I also visited ACRP when it was privately managed. I was impressed then by the professionalism of the staff I met and the quality of the programmes that were run within the prison. I was particularly impressed by the relationships the prison had developed with Māori. 

With change often comes uncertainty. During what has been a lively debate around contract management several concerns were raised.

There has been concern that the Government will be selling off as many as six prisons. In fact, we are only looking at introducing contract managers at two prisons.

Competitive tendering for the contract management of prisons will be on a case-by-case basis. The two preferred sites for contract management are the newly redeveloped Mt Eden/ACRP and a potential new prison in Wiri, South Auckland.

With the prison population projected to continue to grow, there will always be a high demand for experienced, well-performing and professional corrections officers in both public and contract managed prisons. 

We will not be washing our hands of the responsibility of managing prisoners safely, securely and humanely – the Chief Executive of Corrections will ultimately be responsible for the performance of each prison, be the prison publicly or contract managed.

Contract prisons operate in many countries around the world. On the whole, they perform well, with staff enjoying their roles and learning new skills, prisoners are held safely and securely and are provided with good rehabilitation programmes, and strong relationships have been forged with the local communities those prisons are in.

Finally, I would like to thank you all for your hard work during 2009. I believe the Department made great progress in many areas during the year.

I look forward to meeting many of you as I visit prisons around the country in 2010.

Hon Judith Collins
Minister of Corrections

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ISSN 1178-8453

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