Mark Mitchell: Corrections Minister on concerns funding for prisons about to dry out

Our Corrections Minister says services in prisons are improving, despite concerns around staff shortages

An extra 98-million-dollars from this year’s Budget was meant to fund corrections until June - when prisoner numbers were expected to reach 10,800.

This figure is already within reach, nearly a year ahead of schedule.

Mark Mitchell told Ryan Bridge the officers they have are performing well.

He says they're world-class - and tens of thousands of positive interactions happen every day.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Only for prison. Story in the Herald this morning, the
ninety eight million bucks set aside in last year's budget
to higher staff for ten eight hundred inmates has already
been spent. Apparently, prisoner numbers have hit ten thy, seven
hundred and sixty three. So just shy of that. Almost
a year of head of forecast, there are two hundred
and seventy six jobs still vacant. Mark Mitchell, the minister,
good morning, Hey, good morning, Ryan, So forecasts we're off.

(00:22):
Is this because we have more criminals or a higher
proportion of them being locked up?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
There's just more people being locked up? Because is it
incoming government? We're really clear who are prioritizing public safety?
Do that it means that we're not leaving people out
in the community that we're hurting in causing problems. Actually,
they're now in a corrections facility and we'll have a
good credit reahabilitating them.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Do you think he was here if there's double bunking.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
I don't know. I think that they. I think they
care that we make sure that we run the best
possible class corection service we can in the world, and
we do that. I love the chance to be able
to talk about our Corrections offices with the facility to
join the community because they asked quite something world class.
They've do do an amazing job. There are tens of
thousands of points of interactions that happen every day. The

(01:08):
problem is, of course you only hear when something goes
wrong through the media, but may be quite something. They're
outstanding and they've got a very important part to play
around public safety and they're standing up and win that role.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Will fair enough, but Correction says the staff and levels
are suboptimal.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
We're the best we've ever been in the last eight
years in terms of staff. We're in the best position
we have been and eight years. It's not suboptimal at all.
It's not the Christians saying that they're suboptimal. They're saying
that Corrections are at the best place of the being,
like I said, for eight years. As an incoming government,

(01:45):
they started a new recruiting campaign that's been extremely successful.
We've got a massive pipeline of people wanting to join
and become correct sufts as we've got another seventy officers
being trained and ready to deploy deployed. At the moment,
we're the best place that we've been yea.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
That campaign was very successful and they pointed out they
had one hundred and thirty five thousand apparently applying for
jobs and you still have two hundred and seventy six vacancies.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
How does that compute, you know, because that doesn't mean
that everyone gets through, you know, there are my standards
required to become a new zerone Trections officer, as it
should be. But yes, like I said, we're in the
best place we've being for eight years. And the recruiting,
deployment and actually staff on the floor. Now, what that
meant when I first became minister is that we had

(02:30):
a lot of new officers out on the floor, and
of course that was with its own challenges. But we're
now sort of almost two years in and like I said,
we're in a really good position. Look, I have the
opposition in peace is there green in Peas are visiting
twice this week different prisons. They're dying fighting something wrong
with what we're doing, with what our staff are doing.

(02:51):
And I'm doing that now for us two years and
they haven't been able to come up with anything. And
that's a good thing. There's an other health check.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
It sounds like a two Minister appreciate it. Marke Mantell,
Corrections Ministry.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
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