By STEVE HOPKINS – Sunday News Photo: Lawrence SmithCorrections this week released all correspondence it and Corrections Minister Judith Collins, below, had received concerning the smoking ban. Personal details and locations were removed. .
CORRECTIONS Minister Judith Collins has been warned prison staff and inmates could be hurt or even killed when prisoners are banned from smoking.
Jail guards have been threatened they’ll be “bashed” or “stabbed” by prisoners over cigarettes, correspondence released to Sunday News under the Official Information Act reveals.
Documents also reveal Corrections staff have labelled bosses “hypocrites” for not banning prison employees from lighting up as well.
Collins has announced prisoners would be banned from smoking at prisons from July 1, 2011.
a 12-month push to get them to quit was begun when the announcement was made at the end of June.
The minister said smoking “poses a serious health risk to staff and prisoners” and lighters – included in the ban – could be used to make weapons and damage prison property. she cited air quality studies in US prisons that showed correctional staff were exposed to 12 times the levels of second-hand smoke present in the home of an indoor smoker.
a 2005 Ministry of Health survey found 67.1 % of inmates smoked – meaning just under 6000 prisoners were regularly lighting up.
Corrections this week released all correspondence it and Collins had received concerning the smoking ban since the announcement. Personal details and locations were removed.
“There will be rioting, this will happen and it will be on you if people get hurt or killed. It was only last month [May] the first prison officer was killed on the job [Jason Palmer, at Spring Hill Prison] so I think it is only a matter of time before it happens again,” a prisoner wrote to Collins in a letter received by her office on July 5.
a July 13 letter from the same inmate questioned: “Why take something off us only a week after officer Palmer was killed? you are making prisoners really angry. you need to think about safety to your staff and prisoners even if you hate us.”
Three prison incident information reports – completed by guards – since the announcement, raise concerns about staff safety.
One, on July 28, recorded an incident between a guard and an inmate where the prisoner said: “That’s the c*** that wants to stop us smoking. you had better be careful or you will get a punch in the face”.
another, on August 3, records an inmate telling a guard, “once the smoking ban comes in an officer will be stabbed”. another report of that incident claims the inmate made the threat repeatedly.
most of the submissions received are from prison guards concerned about their safety. One guard said management had effectively given staff a “hospital pass”.
a 1997 smoking ban in Australia led to a riot and the arson of newly opened Woodford Correctional Facility in Queensland.
“Staff who do smoke will be targeted,” a guard wrote in an email to New Zealand’s general manager of prison services, Harry Hawthorn, on June 28.
“I am concerned staff are being placed at risk of assault because many prisoners rely on cigarettes to alleviate stress. Giving prisoners their cigarettes is also a strategy often used to de-escalate volatile situations and calm a prisoner down,” another guard wrote in an email on June 28.
a June 29 email sent from a Corrections smoking-ban email address, Clear The Air, read: “One foreseeable consequence of total smoking bans is an increase in the value of contraband tobacco.”
In US and Canadian prisons where tobacco has been banned, “it has become the dominant contraband item, costing up to US$150 per packet” the email said.
All the prison guards’ submissions supported the smoking ban but said it should have included prison staff.
“I can’t help thinking it is hypocritical… to allow staff to smoke and have tobacco… but tell prisoners they cannot,” a prison officer of 16 years wrote in a June 29 email. he added: “It may lead to staff being got at for the sake of a cigarette.”
other correspondence received by Corrections included offers of hypnotherapy to help prisoners stub out their habits, a former inmate’s suggestion PlayStations should be re-introduced to distract prisoners trying to quit and an ex-smoker suggested Corrections should make Allen Carr’s book The Simple Way to stop Smoking available.
Corrections bosses are still finalising how the ban will work but have said prison staff will be able to smoke in designated areas out of sight of prisoners. Corrections is considering banning staff from bringing their tobacco into the prison to avoid them being pressured by inmates. Information packs on the ban were sent to staff last month. Prisoners will get them later this month.
last week, Corrections staff who smoked were offered free nicotine replacement therapy by the Ministry of Health. Prison Service health staff are being trained to provide assistance, quit groups are being set up and “workplace champions” trained to help.