Separation and Isolation report
The Office of the Inspectorate | Te Tari Tirohia has released a report into the management of prisoners who have been separated from the prison population and are unable to mix with other prisoners.
The report has found that many New Zealand prisoners are managed in isolation, with potential profound and long-lasting physical and psychological effects.
Separation and Isolation: Prisoners who have been kept apart from the prison population is the outcome of a thematic inspection by the Office of the Inspectorate, in which all 18 New Zealand prisons were visited.
The report makes seven overarching recommendations, which Corrections has accepted. These include that: ”Corrections must recognise the profound isolation experienced by segregated and at-risk prisoners, including that many are likely to be subject to solitary confinement as that term is defined by the Mandela Rules (the UN standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners).”