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In 2011, the Department of Corrections/Ara Poutama Aotearoa (Corrections) began a series of initiatives aimed at reducing reoffending, including introducing case management. In 2016 Corrections stated that case management had led to improvements in four areas: the assessment of prisoner needs; prisoner motivation to complete activities; scheduling of programmes; and levels of reintegration support. Using in-depth qualitative interviews of seven men formerly in prison in Aotearoa New Zealand, this study explores the perceptions that the formerly imprisoned have of case management, and examines the four improvements identified by Corrections. While based on a small and unique sample group, the study provides interesting indicative insights into case management in the prisons of Aotearoa New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jared Davidson's book, "Blood and Dirt: Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand," explores the hidden history of convict labor in New Zealand. The book challenges New Zealand's national narratives by revealing the significant role that prisoners played in building the country's urban centers and rural landscapes. Davidson focuses on the physical imprints left by incarcerated individuals, such as buildings, roads, and plantations, to demonstrate the impact of penal labor. The book also examines working conditions, resistance strategies, and the connections between the prison system and Māori dispossession. Overall, "Blood and Dirt" sheds light on the relationship between coerced labor and colonization in New Zealand. [Extracted from the article]

In 1844, a replica of the famous Pentonville Prison was built in Wellington, New Zealand, shortly after the commencement of British colonisation. It never matched the size and scope of the London original and was demolished in 1931. However, the existence of this incongruous New Zealand institution raises important sociological issues. First, it will be argued that it had symbolic importance in maintaining settler identity with the homeland. Second, it had a functional importance in terms of the way it represented the ability of the colonial government to subdue any recalcitrant who sought to challenge the authority of British imperial power. Third, its closure came about because of longstanding pressure from local citizens, for whom its presence had become an unwanted stain on the otherwise untainted local landscape, reflecting New Zealand's transition from a frontier society to a modern society with the sensibilities associated with it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the limitations within abolitionist scholarship and activism in relation to prisons, based on the experience of the abolitionist movement in New Zealand. Topics discussed include the failure of abolitionist scholars and activists to engage with alternatives to prisons, the concept of prison abolition, and the implications of the distinctions between prison, penal and carceral abolition for academic interest.

Reflecting worldwide trends, as the prison population in Australia and New Zealand has risen over the past decade, the number of inpatient beds available for the involuntary treatment of mentally ill prisoners transferred from correctional custody has not increased commensurately. In this context, there have been calls to allow involuntary treatment of serious mental illness in prisons. This narrative review considers the extent of unmet psychiatric need within prisons in Australia and New Zealand and considers whether there is any evidence base for involuntary treatment of serious mental illness in prisons. The review concludes that the involuntary treatment of serious mental illness in custodial settings is likely to compromise clinical care, carries a significant risk of serious harms, encourages inappropriate management of prisoners and breaches human rights conventions. The authors found no evidence of improved clinical outcomes or any other benefits directly or indirectly linked to involuntary treatment of serious mental illness in correctional settings. Finally, the review describes the Prison Mental Health Service in the Australian jurisdiction of Queensland and suggests that this represents a 'best practice' model for the management of mentally ill prisoners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like the United Kingdom and New Zealand, all eight Australian jurisdictions have legal provisions for the full-time accommodation of young children with their mothers in prison. Whether and how these laws are enacted varies, and there are no national or international norms. This article integrates a review of policies, principles and operating models with findings from a qualitative study, to describe the current landscape in residential programmes for mothers and children in Australian prisons. It demonstrates how current ideologies limit the system's ability to meet the needs of imprisoned mothers, their children and prison staff. Three issues emerge as problematic: the separation of the rights and interests of mothers and children; over-reliance on attachment theory as both rationale and evidence base; and the individualization of responsibility and risk. The study is of international relevance because these themes and concepts are recognizable elsewhere, including the United Kingdom, New Zealand and some European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Zealand's success at containing the coronavirus, despite a potential reemergence in August, is viewed by the World Health Organization as a model for handling a pandemic. This same success also appears within one of its most vulnerable locales—prisons. While New Zealand's Department of Corrections has not experienced a single COVID-19 case within prison walls, the efforts to contain the virus have also come at costs to incarcerated individuals' rights. This article demonstrates the successful efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic in New Zealand and how these efforts have been met with both praise and criticism. In particular, we will highlight the ways in which prison officials have quickly responded to the pandemic as well as their ongoing efforts to improve the conditions for those incarcerated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Trans people in prison experience disproportionate rates of harm, including negative mental health outcomes, and thus require special protections. Instead, corrections policies have historically further marginalised them. This critical policy review aimed to compare corrections policies for trans people in Australia and New Zealand with human rights standards and consider their mental health impact., Methods: Online searches were conducted on corrections websites for each state/territory in Australia and New Zealand. Drawing on the Nelson Mandela Rules and Yogyakarta Principles, 19 corrections policies relevant to placement, naming, appearance and gender-affirming healthcare for trans people were reviewed. The potential mental health impact of these policies on incarcerated trans people was discussed using the Gender Minority Stress and Resilience framework., Results: Australian and New Zealand corrections policies have become more concordant with human rights standards in the past 5 years. However, gender-related discrimination and human rights violations were present in corrections policies of all jurisdictions. New South Wales and Victorian policies had the highest concordance with human rights standards, while Queensland and South Australian policies had the lowest., Conclusion: Policies that contribute to discrimination and minority stress may increase risk of mental health problems and suicide for incarcerated trans people. Mental health professionals working in prisons need to be aware of these risks to provide safe and accessible mental healthcare for trans people. Collaborative policy development with trans people is essential to protect the safety and rights of incarcerated trans people and consider models beyond the gender binary on which correctional systems have been founded., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

At-Risk Units (ARUs) are dedicated facilities established in New Zealand prisons to assist those considered to be ‘at risk’ of self-harm or suicide. Their remit is ostensibly care-based and rights-conscious, with authorities noting that ARUs preserve the ‘right to life’. Drawing upon research within two correctional sites, alongside analysis of recent documents from oversight bodies and courts, this article considers ARU operations. It is argued that, all too often, ARUs have undermined humane practices towards suicidal or ‘at-risk’ prisoners. Four problems are apparent: (1) ARUs are misused and overused in such a way that secure punishment, rather than care, is prioritized; (2) within a context of ‘lesser eligibility’, ARUs operationalize degrading conditions and treatments towards prisoners; (3) humane treatments are further diminished by a correctional approach to prioritize legal or bureaucratic compliance; and (4) authorities avoid institutional sanction for prisoner harms or deaths, particularly through an emphasis on personal responsibilization or blame. The end-result is that ARUs are regularly operationalized in ways that exacerbate risks and diminish rights for prisoners. A question remains about their fundamental use as an appropriate response to those who suffer mental health distress within penal environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

21 self-identifying kinksters who regularly attend public bdsm events in New Zealand were interviewed as part of an ethnographic inquiry into the Auckland kink scene. They shared various aspects of their kink journeys, including their experiences and reflections about kink becoming increasingly mainstream. While they continue to contend with negative messages perpetuated by the media and contest inaccurate assumptions about kinksters that are circulating in the public consciousness, they are aware of the changing image of bdsm in the public sphere and the potential impact that a paradigm shift towards tolerance and acceptance could have on their lives. This section explores how kinky 'outlaws' perceive and navigate the vanilla or 'real' world. It seeks to address questions such as: what are the popular (mis)representations of kink that have facilitated (or derailed) open dialogue about bdsm? How mainstream, sanitised and 'vanillarised' has kink become, while also simultaneously hypersexualised? Has anything been lost in the process? This chapter also seeks to establish whether kinksters have been receptive to those depictions of bdsm in the media that, on the surface, seem to give a positive spin to the practice. Ultimately this chapter wishes to address how Kiwi kinksters negotiate the beliefs, opinions and attitudes that vanilla people have about bdsm and bdsm practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article utilizes interviews with three teaching artists to interpret their lived experiences of teaching dance classes within New Zealand prisons. Prison environments and prison cultures create a multitude of challenges, such as the physical environment itself, social dynamics and hierarchy, and interaction and relationships with incarcerated participants. Through this discussion I seek to provide an insight into some aspects of the prison environment and prison culture. The article presents opportunities for considerations and suggestions that may assist teaching artists with navigating the challenges of teaching in an unfamiliar environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Consider the unique features and challenges of prison psychiatry., Conclusions: A Prison Mental Health Network within the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists would serve many useful functions including improving the quality of mental health services by promoting high clinical standards and ethical practice by psychiatrists working in prisons.

Psychological treatment programs targeting sexual, violent and general offending can only be effective to the extent that clients are engaged in treatment. Beyond the obvious issues inherent in engaging clients in a program that they may feel coerced into, engaging Māori clients presents additional challenges. In response to the well documented over-representation of Māori people in New Zealand prisons, attempts have been made to integrate Māori ideas and practices into the operation of treatment programs for offenders. However, the extent to which Māori models of health and well-being have been successfully integrated into treatment programs is limited. In this article we explore why Māori models are often absent from offending treatment programs, and how they might be better incorporated. We argue that the best practice rehabilitation framework (i.e., the Risk Needs Responsivity model) is largely incompatible with Māori models of health and wellbeing, and that the contemporary Good Lives Model better accommodates the incorporation of Māori models into the operation of treatment programs for offenders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence is an ongoing concern for many people who live and work in correctional settings and yet relatively little is known about the effects of institutional violence prevention efforts. This paper reports the findings of a scoping review of recent research relevant to understanding the influence of one factor, contact with family, that potentially influences institutional violence in countries such as Aotearoa New Zealand where Indigenous peoples are over-represented in prison settings. A total of 15 different studies were identified that provided consistent evidence of an association between family contact and prison violence. The implications of this work for the development of evidence-based prison violence prevention strategies are discussed.

The article discusses the tensions between individual "rights" and the health of all members of a community in regards to proposals for complete smoking bans in closed institutions such as prisons and psychiatric hospitals in places such as Australia and New Zealand, focusing on the impacts of bans on mental illness and quality of life. According to the article, tobacco smoking is the largest single preventable cause of death in Australia. Cancer and public health interventions are examined.

The focus of this article is on the pilot development and implementation of a prison-based intensive treatment programme for high-risk adult-victim rape offenders in New Zealand. Advances in actuarial risk assessment enabled the identification of a group of high-risk adult sex offenders for whom no dedicated treatment programme existed. Based on a review of the treatment literature for rapists, a pilot programme was developed called the Adult Sex Offender Treatment Programme (ASOTP). The programme, based on the risk–need–responsivity and cognitive behavioural therapy principles, also used an adaptation of Young's schema therapy to address personality responsivity issues and specific idiosyncratic schema associated with participant offence pathways identified by the Massachusetts Treatment Centre classification (Version 3 for rapists). Measures of responsivity and dynamic risk administered in the ASOTP indicated some success in addressing treatment needs for the pilot participants (n=10). The programme has subsequently been expanded across prison specialist treatment unit sites and delivered to a further 52 participants. Although intermediate measures continue to indicate change in dynamic risk, recidivism outcome evaluations have not yet been possible, due to low numbers of paroled participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author discusses the Wähine disaster in which the TEV Wahine, a New Zealand inter-island ferry of the Union Co. foundered on Barrett Reef at the entrance to Wellington Harbour, New Zealand. He argues that whether alternative sentencing practice reduces the rate that Maori women fill the prisons. He also argues to implement indigenous sentencing courts in New Zealand.

Australia and New Zealand have joined the movement of many Western societies in recent years to address a perceived gap in public safety by passing legislation allowing for extended supervision of sex offenders in the community after their release from prison. The Australian State of Victoria passed a law similar to that of New Zealand, and both laws have now been in effect for a similar period of time. Yet despite having comparable laws and approximately comparable base populations, there have been 145 extended supervision orders imposed in New Zealand and 20 such orders in Victoria. This article examines the differences in implementation and the underlying procedures used in the two jurisdictions to understand these very different outcomes. Implications for professional practice, ethics, public safety, and policy development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treatment avoidance or help-negation has been described in clinical and non-clinical samples, in response to real or imagined suicidal scenarios (Canton & Deane, 2000; Rudd, Joiner & Rajab, 1995). The aims of the present study were to describe the process of seeking psychological help in prison based on inmate interviews and to assess the impact of several psychological and systemic factors on the intention to seek help in prison. Male prison inmates (N = 52) were less likely to seek help for suicidal feelings than for a general personal-emotional problem. Thoughts about death and suicide were associated with help-negation for prison inmates. Additionally, participants identified negative reactions from staff and other inmates, lack of trust in prison psychologists, and aversive prison procedures for managing suicidal inmates as barriers to the expression of suicidal concerns. Suggestions are made to improve appropriate professional psychological help-seeking by prison inmates. Future help-seeking research in prison populations should incorporate longitudinal designs (e.g., the Theory of Planned Behavior, Ajzen, 1991) to clarify the attitude-behavior relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offence process models seek to capture the interactions between cognitive, affective, behavioural and volitional components of offences, as they unfold over time. These models are primarily descriptive and provide a foundation to higher levels of theorizing. Previous research into the offence chains of child sexual offenders has suggested that a number of different pathways are required to accommodate the most common variations in how men go about committing their offences. Offence chain research has established that the Relapse Prevention (RP) model accommodates a truncated range of these offence chain patterns, yet most treatment programmes for sex offenders rely heavily on the RP model. In recent research with rapists, we constructed an offence process model for rape, using qualitative data obtained from a sample of rapists incarcerated in New Zealand prisons. We present preliminary work on identifying the pathways that individual offences take through this model. We describe these pathways and examine their implications for tailoring of rehabilitation endeavours for men who sexually assault adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information related to policing serious fraud in New Zealand. Like other nations in the west, the identification of a serious fraud problem in New Zealand is very recent. In the past, measures to deal with elite fraud have been half-hearted and largely ineffective and an unremitting tendency has been for law enforcement authorities to look for crime in the lower socioeconomic classes. Thus, the unemployed consistently have dominated criminal court appearances and constituted almost two thirds of the prison population in 1987. "Dishonesty" offending still makes up around 65 percent of all reported crime. In 1987--when the last figures were published--this involved property valued at $ 291 million. A crude projection based on reported offence increases would boost this to a 1992 estimate of $ 360 million. The bulk of police recorded property crime involves motor vehicle theft and burglary, reinforcing the idea that it is in the blue collar sector that property crime is located.

This paper explores the history and development of prisons in New Zealand, and focuses upon the recent implementation of a progressive prison operation and management prognm known as He Ara Hou. Though still in its infancy, some extremely positive results have been seen, such as higher administrative efficiency, greatly decreased levels of internal disorder, a competent, stable workforce, and a human product whose sense of self-worth and charity have not been destroyed by years of frustration, hatred and fear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion related to the New Zealand prison system. In penological thought there has been a change from the ideas of retaliation by the individual to a broader conception of protection and deterrence through the administration of justice by the social group. Retaliation has given place to more humanitarian methods; more thought is now given to the offender and his possible reformation, together with the protection of society. This change took place in England as in other countries, and is to be noted also in the development of the New Zealand penal system. This carrying over of English ideas is understandable when it is remembered that the majority of early immigrants came from England and other parts of the British Isles. The history of New Zealand from the social point of view is of short duration. About 1350, the Maoris, the native race, reached the shores of New Zealand after their long voyage in their canoes from Hawaiiki. For some three hundred years they enjoyed freedom from contact with Europeans.

Objective: To determine whether a psychological intervention improves coping, post-concussion symptoms and decreases in-prison infractions in adult males with a history of traumatic brain injury., Design: A single centre, randomised, wait-list, pilot study., Setting: A high security prison in New Zealand., Subjects: Fifty-five adult male participants who had experienced at least one traumatic brain injury in their lifetime (mean age 37.29 +/-9.81 years)., Intervention: A manualised ten session, in-person, group based combined Cognitive Behavioural Therapy /Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction intervention versus wait list control., Main Measures: The Negative Affect Repair Questionnaire and Rivermead Post-concussion Symptom Questionnaire were completed at baseline, post-intervention (five weeks) and at 12 week follow up. In-prison misconduct charges and negative file notes were reviewed for the previous five weeks at each assessment time point., Results: There was an improvement in the use of calming and distraction strategies in the intervention group from baseline ( x̄  = 17.38, SD = 3.57) to post-intervention ( x̄  = 18.67, SD = 3.84) and 12-week follow up ( x̄  = 18.13, SD = 2.63). Participants in the intervention group had significantly higher negative affect repair on the calming and distractive strategies subscale following completion of the intervention, compared to wait-list controls ( F  = 4.69, P  = 0.04) with a moderate effect size (η p 2  = 0.11). Improvements in use of calming and distractive strategies was not sustained at the twelve-week follow-up ( F  = 0.87, P  = 0.36). There was no-significant improvement on other negative affect subscales or for post-concussion symptoms or decrease in-prison infractions., Conclusion: A manualised psychological intervention may have the potential to facilitate the development of positive coping strategies in prisoners with a history of traumatic brain injury.

Background: People returning to the community after prison face many challenges, including finding suitable accommodation and employment, and accessing good social support. The prospects are particularly poor for high-risk offenders with up to a third of those released in New Zealand returning to prison within 100 days., Aims/hypotheses: We developed the Parole Experiences Measure (PEM) to quantify the quality of men's life experiences during the first weeks of re-entry from prison. We aimed to answer the question, can the quality of life experiences differentiate men who survive in the community without reconviction from those who do not?, Methods: Using a longitudinal design, we examined whether PEM scores for 178 men with extensive histories of crime and violence predicted three recidivism indices (breach of parole, reconviction and reimprisonment) over a 12-month follow-up period., Results: We found that PEM scores predicted all three indices of recidivism. Of the two PEM subscales, external circumstances (finances, support, accommodation) were more predictive of recidivism than subjective wellbeing (mental and physical health)., Conclusions/implications: The results suggest that meeting basic practical needs in the early months of parole may be more important to avoiding reconviction than attending only to mental and physical health., (© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Phenomenon: Correctional health services can provide quality learning experiences for medical students and graduate medical trainees, including through motivating learners to work with people involved with the justice system, and promoting understanding of the social determinants of health. Approach: We conducted 38 semi-structured interviews to examine the views of learners and educators on how to promote high quality clinical learning in correctional settings, with a focus on the Australian context. Participants included medical students; general practitioners who had undertaken graduate trainee placements; clinical staff involved in teaching and clinical supervision; and graduate program medical educators and university teachers from Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Data were analyzed thematically. Findings: Clinical placements in correctional settings provided learning about the health of people involved in the justice system, but also beneficial clinical learning for working with a wide range of patients with complex health needs. Valued learnings included managing complex consultations, mental health and substance use disorders, and overcoming anxiety related to interacting with people in prison. Learner concerns included limited patient contact time, apprehension prior to placements, and stress related to experiences during the placements. This apprehension and stress could be mitigated by orientation and debriefing, and by appreciating healthcare professionals in correctional settings as advocates for their patients. Clinical supervision was perceived to be demanding in this context. Independent patient interaction was not usually possible for students and there could be short windows of time in which to provide direct patient care, making pauses for teaching difficult. Insights: Clinical placements in correctional health services provide experiential learning of direct relevance to medical student, and potentially to general practice trainee, curricula which is valuable even when learners do not have particular interest in correctional health. Furthermore, these placements may increase the capacity of the medical workforce to provide skilled care to other underserved populations. High quality learner and clinical supervisor experiences, and program scale and sustainability, require enhanced learning support systems through partnerships between correctional health services and education institutions. Required supports for learners include orientation to security arrangements, debriefing sessions which assist learners to distill their learning and to reflect on challenging experiences, and alternative learning opportunities for when direct patient consultations are not accessible. Supervisor teaching supports include shared teaching approaches in the correctional health clinics and added student support from university-based staff.

Background: Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidenced-based treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Forensic mental health services provide assessment and treatment of people with mental illness and a history of criminal offending, or those who are at risk of offending. Forensic mental health services include high, medium, and low-security inpatient settings as well as prison in-reach and community outpatient services. There is a high prevalence of PTSD in forensic settings and posttraumatic experiences can arise in people who violently offend in the context of serious mental illness (SMI). Successful treatment of PTSD may reduce the risk of relapse and improve clinical outcomes for this population. This study aims to assess the efficacy, risk of harm, and acceptability of EMDR within forensic and rehabilitation mental health services, as compared to treatment as usual (routine care)., Methods: This is a single-blind, randomized controlled trial comparing EMDR therapy to the waiting list (routine care). Adult forensic mental health service users (n = 46) with SMI and meeting the criteria for PTSD will be included in the study. Participants will be randomized after baseline assessment to either treatment as usual plus waiting list for EMDR or to treatment as usual plus EMDR. The EMDR condition comprises nine sessions, around 60 min in length delivered weekly, the first of which is a case conceptualization session. The primary outcomes are clinician and participant-rated symptoms of PTSD, and adverse events. Secondary outcomes include psychotic symptoms, social functioning, level of disability, self-esteem, depressive symptoms, post-trauma cognitions, and broad domains of complex posttraumatic difficulties. A trained assessor blinded to the treatment condition will assess outcomes at baseline, 10 weeks, and 6 months. Additionally, grounded theory qualitative methods will be used to explore participant experience of EMDR for a subset of participants., Discussion: This study will contribute to the currently limited evidence base for EMDR for PTSD in forensic settings. It is the first randomized clinical trial to assess the efficacy, risk of harm, and acceptability of EMDR for PTSD in people with SMI in either forensic, mental health inpatient, or custodial settings., Trial Registration: Australia and New Zealand Clinical Trials Network, ACTRN12618000683235. Registered prospectively on 24 April 2018.

Offender rehabilitation is typically thought to have been successful if a higher proportion of a sample of treatment completers avoids being reconvicted for an offence than a comparison sample. Yet, this type of evaluation design tells us little about what brings about these outcomes. In this study, we test whether change in dynamic risk factors during treatment is a recidivism-reducing mechanism in a sample of high-risk offenders. We also examine the extent to which change after treatment-in the period of reentry from prison to the community-mediates this relationship. We found that although individuals made statistically significant change during treatment, this change was not significantly related to recidivism. We did, however, find tentative support for an indirect relationship between treatment change and recidivism, through change that occurred during reentry. These findings signal the importance of the reentry period for understanding how change in treatment is related to long-term outcomes.

Whitireia New Zealand and the Department of Corrections have worked collaboratively since 2008 in developing and delivering primary mental health (PMH) training for registered correctional nurses, specifically focused on assessment and brief interventions applicable to a primary health setting. The PMH training program was undertaken and evaluated by Department of Correction nurses between 2009 and 2016. Significant improvements in PMH learning outcomes were noted among 396 participants, while 98% applied knowledge gained from the PMH workshops to their practice. This highly successful educational collaboration has enhanced nurses' knowledge and skills in recognizing and managing PMH issues within the prison environment.