POA urges caution on use of prisoners for CEPEP-type labour

The Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) is urg­ing cau­tion over Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der’s pro­pos­al to use con­vict­ed in­mates sen­tenced to hard labour to as­sist with pub­lic space main­te­nance un­der the Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces (NPUPS), say­ing the move must be sup­port­ed by prop­er se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures, staffing and re­sources be­fore it is im­ple­ment­ed.

The As­so­ci­a­tion said it recog­nis­es the val­ue of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion through struc­tured work pro­grammes but warned that de­ploy­ing in­mates out­side cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties to clean com­mu­ni­ties, cut grass and main­tain pub­lic ar­eas re­quires care­ful plan­ning and strict safe­guards.

Alexan­der an­nounced on Tues­day that the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to tap what he de­scribed as “the largest labour force in the na­tion” by us­ing prison in­mates as part of ef­forts to ad­dress pub­lic main­te­nance is­sues fol­low­ing the clo­sure of the Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP).

“We have the largest labour force in the na­tion's prison and we don't utilise them,” Alexan­der said dur­ing a vis­it to an NPUPS site in Tu­na­puna.

He said in­mates sen­tenced to hard labour could be rein­tro­duced in­to pub­lic spaces to as­sist with the clean-up process, while al­so giv­ing them an op­por­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate their readi­ness for rein­te­gra­tion in­to so­ci­ety.

The POA said mean­ing­ful work is an im­por­tant com­po­nent of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, help­ing in­mates de­vel­op prac­ti­cal skills, dis­ci­pline and pre­pare for life af­ter in­car­cer­a­tion.

How­ev­er, the As­so­ci­a­tion said on­ly care­ful­ly se­lect­ed con­vict­ed in­mates should be con­sid­ered for ex­ter­nal work pro­grammes.

It said those in­mates should be med­ical­ly cer­ti­fied fit, have served an ap­pro­pri­ate por­tion of their sen­tence and suc­cess­ful­ly com­plete med­ical, se­cu­ri­ty and be­hav­iour­al risk as­sess­ments.

The POA al­so warned that su­per­vis­ing in­mate work de­tails in pub­lic spaces is a spe­cialised cor­rec­tion­al func­tion re­quir­ing trained prison of­fi­cers, suf­fi­cient staffing, se­cure trans­porta­tion, ap­pro­pri­ate equip­ment and clear op­er­a­tional pro­ce­dures.

The As­so­ci­a­tion raised con­cerns about what it de­scribed as in­ad­e­quate com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­vices and oth­er op­er­a­tional re­sources cur­rent­ly avail­able to prison of­fi­cers.

It said de­ploy­ing of­fi­cers and in­mates out­side cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties with­out re­li­able com­mu­ni­ca­tion equip­ment could com­pro­mise of­fi­cer safe­ty, emer­gency re­sponse, op­er­a­tional com­mand and pub­lic se­cu­ri­ty.

The POA said these is­sues must be ad­dressed be­fore any ex­pan­sion of ex­ter­nal in­mate work pro­grammes.

It al­so point­ed to pres­sure on the prison sys­tem caused by an in­creas­ing in­mate pop­u­la­tion, in­clud­ing a grow­ing re­mand pop­u­la­tion linked to de­lays in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and the re­cent ad­di­tion of in­di­vid­u­als de­tained un­der Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs).

The As­so­ci­a­tion said over­crowd­ing, staffing short­ages and lim­it­ed re­sources con­tin­ue to af­fect the Prison Ser­vice’s abil­i­ty to safe­ly man­age in­mates.

It said re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion must be bal­anced with in­vest­ments in staffing, in­fra­struc­ture, com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems, se­cu­ri­ty re­sources, trans­porta­tion and im­prove­ments to ju­di­cial process­es.

The POA said it re­mains will­ing to work with Gov­ern­ment and oth­er stake­hold­ers to en­sure any in­mate work pro­gramme is im­ple­ment­ed re­spon­si­bly, with the safe­ty of prison of­fi­cers, in­mates and the pub­lic as the pri­or­i­ty.