March 28, 2023
Davis says union too negative on prison jobs
Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis has taken a swipe at the prison officers’ union for not supporting the department’s recruitment drive.
Corrections have attracted a record number of applications through a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign.
Mr Davis says one thing it had to counter was the negative talk coming out of the union.
“It’s quite unfortunate. It’s quite sad. Look, it’s a difficult job, it’s a challenging job, don’t get me wrong, but they’re complaining there aren’t enough corrections officers and then they just talk down the job. It is an honourable career. I know it has bad raps at times but when we have people go in who want to make a difference for our people who are inside, that’s when we will see really good stuff happening,” he says.
Mr Davis spoke yesterday to more than 100 new recruits and says he was pleased to see among them many Māori and many people shifting from other careers.