City cells fill up as prison overflows

Remand prisoners are filling up Tauranga Police Station because Waikeria Prison's remand cells are overflowing.

Six Tauranga prisoners who should have been at Waikeria last night were kept at the police station - a slight decrease from the night before when the cells were almost at capacity.

Yesterday, 13 male holding cells were full and one female cell was being used.

The Bay of Plenty Times understands the prisoners were kept at the station because there were too many for Waikeria to accommodate.

Forty remand prisoners were taken to Waikeria at the beginning of the week because Mt Eden Prison in Auckland was too full.

Remand prisoners are being held at Tauranga Police Station as Waikeria Prison is full.
PICTURE: CLAIRE DE BARR

The prisoners would be held in Tauranga until space opens up at Waikeria.

Other areas that Waikeria Prison's overflow would affect include Rotorua, Taupo, Whakatane and Hamilton.

Assistant regional manager of Corrections Gavin Dalziel said prisoners could go to police cells in times of pressure. He confirmed eight prisoners were held on Tuesday night.

"We are doing all we can to transfer sentenced prisoners elsewhere in the country to accommodate these (Tauranga) prisoners," he said yesterday.

Mr Dalziel said there was space for prisoners elsewhere in the prison system but not for remand prisoners.

"Remand prisoners can not be mixed with sentenced prisoners, and the department must ensure that their security arrangements are provided for before they can be housed safely in the prison," he said.

Mr Dalziel said they had a memorandum of understanding with police about accommodating prisoners during peaks.

"Operational necessity will mean that this situation will occur again from time to time in the future," he said.

Inspector Karl Wright-St Clair said the police station was an authorised prison and was equipped to look after those brought in from Waikeria.

"We've got the staff to deal with it, we've had jailers working in here for the past few days," he said.

They were the same civilian jailers who didn't have their contracts renewed with the police in March.

The jailers were hired over the past six years when the country's prisons were full and police stations often had to hold prisoners.

But the Bail Amendment Act introduced last October resulted in more offenders being given bail and appeared to have taken the pressure off prison populations.

Former Minister of Justice and National Bay of Plenty MP Tony Ryall said the problem was similar to what happened a few years ago with over-crowding.

"Most of this pressure was relieved when they built these new prisons but obviously it's not (enough)," he said.

"You would've thought with all the money spent on extra prisons and things like that, you'd at least have space to put these people, Mr Ryall said.

"You can't have remand prisoners held for huge lengths of time in police cells, they're simply not designed for it."