The mother of a man murdered inside Auckland Prison at Paremoremo is demanding accountability from the Department of Corrections, putting renewed attention on one of the most serious responsibilities carried by the state — keeping people alive when they are in its custody.
Her call comes against a troubling backdrop of deaths across New Zealand prisons, including homicides, suspected suicides and deaths from natural causes.
The case reported by RNZ raises a fundamental question about imprisonment. A prison sentence removes a person’s liberty, but it does not remove the state’s responsibility to protect their life, health and basic human rights.
For whānau who lose someone behind bars, that distinction is critical.
When somebody dies while imprisoned, their family cannot simply investigate the circumstances themselves. They are dependent on the institutions responsible for custody and the independent oversight bodies tasked with determining what happened.
60 deaths reviewed in just three years
The scale of prison deaths has attracted increasing scrutiny.
The Ombudsman recently reviewed 60 deaths in prison custody over a three-year period, with 22 — more than one-third — treated as suspected suicides.
Concerns have particularly centred on prisoners experiencing severe mental illness and the shortage of specialist forensic mental-health beds.
That shortage can leave seriously unwell people waiting inside prisons for specialist treatment. Previous reporting has shown people awaiting admission to Auckland’s Mason Clinic were spending an average of about 50 days in prison before a bed became available.
More recent official figures reinforce the scale of the issue.
The Office of the Inspectorate recorded 22 deaths in Corrections custody during 2024/25 alone. Twelve were provisionally regarded as natural deaths, eight as unnatural and two as homicides. The previous year recorded 31 deaths.
Those figures do not mean every death was preventable or resulted from a failure by Corrections. People in prison can have complex health conditions, and New Zealand’s ageing prison population also contributes to deaths from natural causes.
But every death in state custody demands scrutiny precisely because the person who died was under the state’s control.
What does dying in custody actually mean?
New Zealand’s coronial system applies special requirements when somebody dies in official custody or care.
That extends beyond prisons.
Deaths must be reported to the Coroner when a person dies while in Police custody, prison or Corrections custody, under a public protection order, or in Oranga Tamariki care, including some care arrangements involving iwi and cultural social services. The requirement applies even when there is already an apparently natural cause of death.
Other forms of compulsory state care can also fall within the wider coronial framework.
The principle is straightforward: when the state has taken responsibility for someone’s liberty or care, their death requires independent examination.
In prisons, every death is investigated by the operationally independent Office of the Inspectorate – Te Tari Tirohia and referred to the Coroner. Police may also investigate where criminal circumstances are suspected, while the Ombudsman can determine whether a separate investigation is required.
The Coroner must conduct an inquiry into a death in custody and ultimately issues a written finding establishing the circumstances and cause of death.
Coroners can also make recommendations aimed at reducing the chances of similar deaths happening again. Those findings are public documents.
That process matters enormously in a prison homicide.
It is not enough to establish who killed somebody. There can also be legitimate questions about risk assessments, prisoner placement, supervision, intelligence, staffing, previous threats and whether authorities had information that could have changed the outcome.
Mental health remains a major warning sign
Suicide and serious mental illness remain among the most persistent concerns within New Zealand prisons.
A coronial finding released last year examined the death of 27-year-old Jessie Tiwai James-McDonald, who died by suicide at Rimutaka Prison in 2020 after waiting four months to access mental-health services.
The Coroner found the Covid-19 lockdown worsened access to forensic mental-health services that were already under substantial pressure. The Inspectorate had also identified a sharp increase in suspected prison suicides during the period following the beginning of the pandemic.
The problem reaches beyond Corrections because specialist forensic psychiatric services sit within the wider health system.
When secure hospital beds are unavailable, prisons can effectively become holding places for people experiencing severe psychiatric illness despite not being designed to provide hospital-level mental-health treatment.
That has prompted warnings that without sufficient specialist capacity, further deaths could follow.
Deaths in Police custody have raised similar questions
The issue of deaths in state custody is not confined to prisons.
In 2012, the Independent Police Conduct Authority published a major review examining 27 deaths in or following Police custody over a ten-year period.
The review identified recurring issues involving alcohol and drugs, mental health, restraint, searches, medical treatment and the training of custody staff.
It resulted in 20 recommendations aimed at improving Police policies and procedures.
The IPCA stressed that deaths in Police custody were uncommon and that not every death was foreseeable or preventable.
But its review also recognised the special responsibility created when somebody loses their freedom and becomes dependent on the state for their safety.
That principle remains just as relevant today.
Māori carry a particular stake in prison safety
For Māori whānau, accountability within Corrections carries particular importance because Māori remain heavily overrepresented throughout the criminal justice and prison systems.
That means debates about prisoner safety, mental-health treatment, violence, rehabilitation and deaths in custody inevitably have a disproportionate impact on Māori communities.
Behind every prison statistic sits a person connected to whānau, whakapapa, hapū and community.
Being sentenced to prison does not mean being sentenced to violence, untreated illness or death.
And when a person dies behind the walls, their whānau are entitled to understand not only the immediate cause but whether the systems responsible for protecting them worked as they should.
Auckland Prison itself is set to grow
The scrutiny comes at a significant time for Paremoremo.
As of 31 March 2026, Auckland Prison held 607 people, according to Corrections statistics.
Corrections is now pursuing plans that would allow the prison’s designated maximum capacity to increase from 681 to 1,220 people, almost doubling its permitted capacity.
That makes questions about staffing, safety, mental-health provision and violence particularly important.
An Ombudsman inspection of Auckland Prison has already examined conditions and treatment at the facility, while a separate Inspectorate investigation into parts of the prison previously identified staffing levels as a significant factor affecting its ability to provide prisoners with minimum entitlements. Corrections accepted the resulting recommendations.
Expanding capacity therefore cannot simply be about finding room for more beds.
It also means ensuring enough corrections officers, health professionals, psychologists and other specialist staff are available to safely manage a larger and potentially increasingly complex prison population.
Accountability after a death
Corrections says every prison death triggers multiple layers of scrutiny.
All deaths undergo an internal incident review, investigation by the independent Inspectorate and referral to the Coroner. The Inspectorate examines both custodial management and healthcare, and recommendations can be made where improvements are required.
Those processes are important.
But for grieving whānau, the bigger test is what happens afterwards.
A coronial recommendation or Inspectorate finding can identify a failure, but preventing another death depends on agencies learning from those findings, implementing changes and ensuring the same problems are not repeated.
The mother now demanding accountability following her son’s murder at Auckland Prison is therefore raising a question extending far beyond one case.
When the state takes away someone’s freedom, how far does its responsibility extend for keeping that person safe — and when they die in its care, who is ultimately accountable?
With dozens of prison deaths being examined by oversight agencies, recurring concerns about mental-health capacity and Auckland Prison preparing for potentially substantial expansion, that is a question Corrections cannot afford to treat as simply another statistic.
Every number represents somebody who entered state custody alive.
And every death leaves a whānau waiting to understand why they did not come home.
Where to get help:
- Need to Talk? Free call or text 1737 any time to speak to a trained counsellor, for any reason
- Lifeline: 0800 543 354 or text HELP to 4357
- Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 / 0508 TAUTOKO. This is a service for people who may be thinking about suicide, or those who are concerned about family or friends
- Depression Helpline: 0800 111 757 or text 4202
- Samaritans: 0800 726 666
- Youthline: 0800 376 633 or text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz
- What’s Up: 0800 WHATSUP / 0800 9428 787. This is free counselling for 5 to 19-year-olds
- Asian Family Services: 0800 862 342 or text 832. Languages spoken: Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Hindi, and English.
- Victim Support 0800 842 846.
- Rural Support Trust Helpline: 0800 787 254
- Healthline: 0800 611 116
- Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155
- OUTLine: 0800 688 5463
- Aoake te Rā bereaved by suicide service: or call 0800 000 053
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
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