Practical, cost effective prison cells

It is no secret that our prisons are facing a capacity crisis following a distinct lack of planning by the previous Labour government, which could soon see the number of prisoners exceed the number of beds available in our prisons.

The National-led Government is committed to finding practical and cost-effective solutions to curb this crisis and to ensure criminals are kept off our streets.

During last year's election, many from within our ethnic communities lobbied for tougher laws and increased penalties for the perpetrators of violent crime.

We listened and have introduced a number of legislative changes that take the power away from the offenders and place it back in the victims' hands - including the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill, which means repeat offenders sentenced to five years or more for violent or sexual offences will no longer be eligible for parole.

But we must also ensure that we have sensible, cost effective cells in which to house these and the other offenders who make up New Zealand's increasing prison population.

The National-led Government has been forced to take immediate action to ensure that prisoners are securely locked away and that the public is not put at unnecessary risk by keeping prisoners temporarily in police or court cells.

The challenge we face is to build extra prison beds quickly and cost effectively and not to repeat the previous government's disregard for tax-payer money when building new cells.

The per-bed cost at Spring Hill Corrections Facility, opened by the Labour government in 2007, was $643,000 - including plasma televisions and under-floor heating.

We believe this is too much of a burden to place on the taxpayer and that a more cost-effective solution must be found.

That is why the Corrections Department will introduce double bunking to some of the newer prisons to increase the capacity of these facilities. Double bunking can be done safely and is used in many countries overseas.

The Corrections Department is also evaluating the possible use of modular and container cells, which are a fast and cost-effective way of creating extra prison beds - at a cost of $7,625 per two-bedded container being brought into New Zealand.

The container cells that are currently being evaluated are modern and clean, but are not luxurious. Unlike the Labour Party, this Government does not want New Zealand's prisons to resemble health spas and we are not interested in having the tax-payer fund expensive prison cells.

With a global economic crisis in full swing, ports around the world are full of cheap containers and it makes good sense to recycle these materials and follow in the footsteps of other countries in using them to house prisoners.

They are cheap to resource and the "plugged in cost" per bed to an existing prison with enough infrastructure to support the extra prisoners is about $63,000 - half the direct cost of a conventional cell.

The container cells will also aid in the rehabilitation, with Corrections considering the possibility of have prisoners build the cells - helping them to gain skills, which can be used upon their release from prison. Prisoners will gain skills and help pay their debt to society, our prisons will get more beds and the taxpayer will save hundreds of thousands of dollars.