July 03, 2023
Corrections pays lip service to Māori says Ombudsman
The Chief Ombudsman, Peter Boshier, says Corrections is paying lip service to Māori culture, and it needs to shake up its ideas and ways of doing things.
He’s release a new report Kia Whaitake – Making a Difference after investigating how the department, Ara Poutama Aotearoa, has responded to repeated calls for improvements in the way prisoners are treated.
He says the pace of change is glacial, and the department continues with practices such as locking up prisoners in their cells for up to 23 hours a day, along with an obsession with watching them shower and do their ablutions.
It also doesn’t seem to have come to grip with the fact 52 percent of men in prison and 57 percent of women are Maori.
“And yet culture, te ao Maori, is paid only lip service. There is a regime called Hokai Rangi, but those working on the ground says it doesn’t really see the light of day,” Judge Boshier says.
He says Corrections system is failing to prepare inmates to become normal members of society on their release.