I was born in Wellington and raised in the then smallish town of Tawa, about 15 minutes drive from the capital’s CBD. I vividly recall that my regular visits into Wellington usually involved passing by what was then known as the Arohata Borstal.
The Māori meaning of Arohata is “the Bridge” – i.e. meaning a bridge between past offending and a future in the wider community. Or as is often sadly the case, between youth and adult jail. Always intended for women, Arohata was opened in 1944 as a “borstal”. It then briefly became a “youth prison” in 1981, before assuming its present name of Arohata Prison in 1987.
As a child and teen, I found it a mysterious and somewhat foreboding place, adjacent to a main road, but simultaneously cut off, replete with barred windows and doors.
I left Tawa decades ago and travelled widely before my return to New Zealand. But to my surprise, Arohata – which I hadn’t thought of in years – has recently hit the news here.
Facing staff shortages, the Corrections Department opted to shift large numbers of women prisoners in Arohata to New Zealand’s two other women’s prisons in Auckland and Christchurch.
In doing so, Wellington lawyer Amanda Hill told the Bay of Plenty Business News, they effectively cut off the prisoners from the contact and support they needed and depended upon from family and children. Most Arohata prisoners have been drawn from the lower North Island.
Hill – who acted as a co-prosecution counsel in successful High Court action against the Correction Department’s arbitrary decision – acknowledged the department had faced a problem with short staffing. And that this had worsened since the impact of Covid.
“The background to all of this is that the entire prison system from 2021 through to now really has been short-staffed to a critical extent,” she said. “So, Corrections came up with a number of plans to keep the prison system from collapsing completely.”
One scheme was focused on Rimutaka Prison for men in Upper Hutt, which had previously been closed.
“To reopen it, they took staff from Arohata to help run Rimutaka. And then shipped all the sentenced women from Arohata to the other two women’s prisons,” said Hill.
Corrections’ action to close Arohata to sentenced prisoners was triggered because Arohata then became short staffed. This action, in late 2022, eventually triggered the court action from Hill and her co-counsel on behalf of the women who had been separated from their family support. While the lawyers won their case against the Corrections Department, and some of the women have now been returned to Arohata, each outstanding New Zealand case is still being individually reviewed by the Corrections Department.
I have long been aware of data and reports demonstrating that New Zealand has a prison system that is essentially racist. In New Zealand a higher percentage of the jailed population is comprised of indigenous New Zealanders than their percentage of the population would lead one to expect.
Somewhat surprisingly to me, New Zealand’s rate of female prison incarceration compared to males is higher than in many other countries, according to available data.
Hill added: “Research shows women [in prison] have a higher level of addiction issues and a higher level of trauma because most women in prisons have been a victim of some level of abuse.”
Hill said the lawyers were currently waiting for the Corrections Department to slowly work through previous problems.
“They have reopened some units at Arohata, but not many and it’s a work in progress,” said Hill. “It’s just very slow. We’re working on seeking damages for some of the women who’ve been cut off from their children and families.”
Related: I’d rather [not] go blind¹
