February 25, 2022
Covid in prisons – a wake up call
Prisoner support group the Howard League is expecting Covid-19 to spread rapidly through prisons now Omicron is here.
Manager John Sinclair says it’s already in a third of the 18 prisons, with 120 cases in the privately-run Auckland Corrections facility at Wiri.
He says the Government should have used the pandemic as a driver to reduce numbers in prison even further.
More than half of those in New Zealand prisons are classified as minimum risk.
“There should be more of a wake-up call to say why are we holding so many prisoners the Corrections Department itself classifies as minimal risk, why aren’t they back in the community,” Mr Sinclair says.
He says other countries like Ireland have reduced prisoner numbers during the pandemic.