OFFICE OF THE INSPECTORATE Te Tari Tirohia

Message from Janis Adair, Chief Inspector:

As New Zealand responds to COVID-19, the Office of the Inspectorate will continue its important work to ensure that all prisoners are treated in a way that is fair, safe, secure and humane.  This is especially important given the restrictions that will have an impact on prisoners and community offenders, and their family and whānau.

In responding to this situation, we have made some immediate and significant changes to how we work.

We will now deal directly with all cases that come to us. We will seek early resolution opportunities for all complaints and issues, to ensure that where matters can be resolved in a timely way, we make every effort to make this happen. This change will also enable us to identify any emerging risks and challenges which we will refer to Corrections to address but we will continue monitor.

Importantly we will be operating an extended hours service which will also include weekend operations.

The best way to contact us is by telephone (0800 225 697) or email (inspectorate@corrections.govt.nz).

If you have a family or whānau member in prison, please look at the Corrections website (https://www.corrections.govt.nz/), which has information about how Corrections is responding to the COVID-19 situation (including email addresses you can use to contact someone in prison).

The Inspectorate is part of the Department of Corrections, but we are operationally independent from the matters we investigate to ensure objectivity and integrity.

I am committed to working in a way that is agile and responsive. This means in the coming days and weeks ahead we may need to continue to adapt the way we work but I will ensure that we communicate any changes to how we work.

These are challenging times and we are facing many uncertainties but I can assure you that the fair, safe, secure and humane treatment of prisoners and offenders is a priority for the Office of the Inspectorate.