14 April
Hawkes Bay Regional Prison (HBRP) successfully completed an emergency response exercise late last week that has staff fully prepared and ready in the event of a hostage situation.
“Prison Services' top priority is keeping the public safe so putting the staff through their paces like this is really important,” says Hawkes Bay Regional Prison Manager George Massingham.
“It is extremely useful to put the theory of emergency response into practice in a realistic environment so that if the time comes when the Advanced Control and Response teams are actually needed, then things will run as smoothly as possible.”
Mr Massingham says that this week’s exercise used a multi-agency approach with HBRP staff and Police working together. There were a number of exercises which led on from each other giving a realistic sequence of events and timeliness to the situation.
“The first exercise started with a non-compliant prisoner and that escalated through to a situation with hostages and weapons. In the latter stages we worked with a Police Hostage Negotiator and the Armed Offenders Squad.
“We held the exercise in a unit in the prison that is currently vacant due to reconstruction work so no actual prisoners were involved; we had our staff and Police playing that role. Outside of the unit all prison activities and routines continued as normal.”
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