Auckland Region Women's Corrections Facility (ARWCF) opened in 2006 and was the second of four new prisons constructed as part of the Department’s Regional Prisons Development Project.
ARWCF is the first purpose-built women’s prison in New Zealand. The facility was built to accommodate a growing number of female prisoners and services in the upper North Island.
The facility can accommodate 286 prisoners with security classifications ranging from minimum to high-medium. ARWCF employs 167 staff.
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Further information
Design
Security
Reducing re-offending
Motivational programmes
Cognitive-behavioural programmes
Specialist units
Prisoner employment
Education
Reintegration
Working with the community
Design
ARWCF incorporates design and features intended to promote safety, security and rehabilitation.
The design is consistent with modern prison design internationally and the Department’s experience operating New Zealand prisons.
ARWCF is a big, secure enclosure with a range of separate units set in a large open space within a perimeter fence. Accommodation units are clustered around centrally located services such as kitchens, industry areas and programme rooms.
The secure perimeter allows a more open internal prison environment, where prisoners can move through a planned day.
The layout is intended to protect the public and staff, reduce stress and prisoner management issues and provide a more effective environment for treatment, training and work programmes.
Security
Improving public safety is the Department’s highest priority and this is accomplished through the secure incarceration of prisoners.
The level of physical security at each prison varies and is dependant on the type of prisoner accommodated. Because ARWCF is a high security prison and accommodates prisoners assessed as a potential risk to the public, the level of physical security is high.
ARWCF has a highly secure perimeter, which comprises a taut wire fence topped with electrical wires and motion sensors. The facility has a single controlled point of entry, where all visitors to the site are scanned and their belongings x-rayed. The facility is monitored by CCTV cameras.
Inside the wire, the prison is built on two sides of a central building, known as the ‘spine’, which houses rehabilitation spaces such as the textiles and distribution workshops, as well as other facilities such as the prison library.
On one side of the spine are the high/medium security accommodation blocks. This side of the site has high remotely controlled fences to prevent prisoners from moving outside of their accommodation area.
There is one high security Management/Separates Unit with 21 beds: 15 management beds and 6 separates beds. There are also two high-medium security units, one for sentenced and one for remand prisoners, that each have 60 beds. There is also a 20-bed assessment unit.
The low-medium and low security units are located on the opposite side of the spine. This side of the site is basically an open space with one secure perimeter fence and prisoners are responsible for their own movement around the site. There are two low-medium security units, which together hold 100 prisoners. There are also eight self-care units, each holding 4 prisoners and providing 34 low security beds.
Reducing re-offending
Reducing re-offending is critical if the Department is to meet its overriding objective of improving public safety.
Reducing re-offending means fewer offenders commit crime after completing their sentence – resulting in fewer victims, a reduction in the cost of crime and safer communities.
ARWCF provides prisoners with a range of rehabilitation programmes and interventions that are designed to address the primary causes of their offending and prepare them for release.
The most intensive interventions are targeted at those prisoners who are assessed as having a high-risk of re-offending, have complex needs that caused their offending and are motivated to make constructive changes in their lives.
Every prisoner entering ARWCF receives a sentence plan which they are expected to comply with. The focus of the sentence plan is on reducing re-offending on release and is developed following an assessment of a prisoner’s risk, needs and motivation to ensure they are placed on the most appropriate and timely programmes and interventions to address the underlying causes of their offending.
Rehabilitation programmes and interventions provided at ARWCF fall into four main categories: motivational, cognitive-behavioural, employment and education, and reintegrative.
Motivational programmes
Motivational programmes are designed to increase motivation and to encourage and prepare prisoners to confront the causes of their offending.
There are two primary motivational programmes used at ARWCF: the Tikanga Maori Programme and the Short Motivational Programme.
Tikanga Maori programmes use Maori philosophy, values, knowledge and practice to help prisoners increase their understanding of their Maori identity and their values, and improve their self-esteem so they become motivated to address the causes of their offending.
The Short Motivational Programme aims to increase motivation by increasing a prisoner’s problem awareness and recognition, reducing ambivalence, addressing cognitive distortions, and helping them consider options and formulate goals.
Cognitive-behavioural programmes
Cognitive-behavioural programmes aim to reduce re-offending by helping prisoners address the causes of their offending and teach them to identify, analyse and solve problems and make decisions to better their lives. Prisoners also learn how to understand the consequences of their actions and gain control over their own behaviour.
ARWCF provides the Kowhiritanga Rehabilitation Programme to prisoners. Kowhiritanga (Making Choices) is specifically for female prisoners and addresses their unique need – many female prisoners have suffered from abuse during childhood and in their current relationships.
Most of the programme is based on cognitive-behavioural therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy, group psychotherapy, recreational psychology and a narrative approach to therapy.
Specialist units
ARWCF has a specialist baby bonding unit. Mothers who have babies aged under nine months being cared for in the community are permitted daily visits in secure, purpose-built facilities where they can feed and bond with their child.
These facilities replicate a domestic lounge setting with a bathroom, kitchenette and sleeping room for the baby. There is also an external courtyard. Feeding and bonding facilities allow a mother to spend up to 12 hours a day with her baby. This arrangement also allows the baby to bond with the caregiver raising the child while the mother serves her sentence.
Some prisoners with babies (up to nine months) may be eligible to live in self-care units where they have greater ability to manage their own living arrangements.
Prisoner employment
Prisoner employment, managed by Corrections Inmate Employment (CIE), plays an integral part in the rehabilitation of prisoners because it provides them with essential work skills and habits.
The last prison census in 2003 found that over half of all prisoners were not in paid employment prior to sentencing.
Prisoner employment increases the chance a prisoner will find sustainable work on release and research shows that this results in a decrease in the number of prisoners being reconvicted.
ARWCF offers two main types of employment:
Prisoners are able to earn credits under the National Qualification Framework, allowing them to work towards qualifications whilst they are engaged in employment and training.
Minimum security prisoners who are nearing release may also be eligible to participate in Release to Work, a form of temporary release that allows prisoners to be in paid work in the community during the day. It provides prisoners with a stable work record and the job is often carried on after a prisoner’s release.
Education
There is a strong relationship between a lack of education and criminal behaviour. At the time of the last prison census in 2003, 51.7 percent of all prisoners had no formal qualifications.
Educational achievement and participation can equip prisoners for self-sufficiency and reduce the barriers to living an offence-free life. A prisoner can enrol in any subject or education programme they consider themselves capable of achieving.
There are five main types of education offered to prisoners at ARWCF:
In addition, computer and hobby classes are also available at most prisons.
ARWCF also runs a range of skill and developmental programmes offering activities such as weaving, religious groups, cultural groups and other education programmes.
Reintegration
Reintegration programmes aim to address problems likely to increase a prisoners’ risk of re-offending on release.
Being imprisoned can have significant social consequences for a prisoner. They are likely to have lost their job and accommodation, they are unlikely to be able to support their families and their relationships can be adversely affected in other ways. Combined, this can lead offenders into a cycle of institutionalisation.
ARWCF provides two reintegrative programmes:
Reintegration case-workers also work with high-need prisoners at ARWCF to address their specific reintegrative needs and help them prepare for release in the community.
ARWCF has eight self-care units where longer-serving prisoners may be eligible to spend time as they near release. These are residential-style units inside the prison that let prisoners get used to living in a flatting type environment and give prisoners an opportunity to learn and practise the skills they will need to live independently after release.
The Ministry of Social Development,Work and Income work brokers and case managers are permanently based at ARWCF to help prisoners find suitable work before they are released. Prisoners who find sustainable employment on release are less likely to re-offend.
Working with the community
The community has an important role to play in the rehabilitation and transition of prisoners back into the community by supporting and encouraging prisoners to live an offence-free life.
Many sectors of the community are involved in rehabilitating offenders and helping them move back into the community.
The Department developed ARWCF in conjunction with local iwi representatives Puukaki ki te Aakitai. In their role as guardians or Kaitiaki, Puukaki ki te Aakitai were actively involved in the development and construction of ARWCF and have an ongoing connection to it through the rehabilitation programmes that operate there.
ARWCF has a cultural space called the ‘papamauri’ in which Kaitiaki are contracted to run educational and spiritual programmes for prisoners.
ARWCF also works with a number of support agencies, including New Zealand Prisoner’s Aid and Rehabilitation Society (NZPARS), Prison Fellowship and the Salvation Army to support the successful reintegration of prisoners back into the community.
A large number of people also regularly donate their time, energy and expertise as volunteers with ARWCF. Volunteers provide invaluable support for prisoners and their families and give prisoners the opportunity to spend their free time constructively through music, art and sport.