Iwi connections base for prison rehab plan

Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon believes iwi are best placed to manage not only prisons by rehabilitation services.

Mr Foon says it’s clear the current corrections system is not working.

He says some prisons now include some Māori or Pasifika cultural content, but it is short term.

There needs to be a serious commitment to trades training within prisons to prepare inmates for a life on the outside where they don’t reoffend, and iwi with the support of government could also be well placed to help released prisoners with housing and jobs.

"Iwi are very successful in business now and they have many sectors of business where they can place people into jobs – forestry, fishing, building houses, horticulture, agriculture, administration," he says.

Commissioner Foon says if government is capable of contracting out prisons to international outsourcing firm Serco it is capable of working with iwi on a prison management system.

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