By Amanda Gillies
A prison inmate at Mt Eden Corrections Facility was sexually assaulted with a broomstick earlier this month.
Three prisoners are facing charges following the incident, and a former inmate warns the number of sexual assaults in prisons will continue to rise until conditions are improved.
Two prison sources have told 3 News the victim of the sexual assault was a nark, and that he was assaulted so badly he needed hospital treatment.
Serco, which operates the prison, confirmed to 3 News it has reported to police an assault on an inmate on September 5. They refused to give any more details however, saying it is now a police investigation.
Police told 3 News the CIB was investigating but so far no charges had been laid.
Beven Hanlon, president of the Corrections Association, says incidents like this are to be expected when staffing cuts are made.
“This sort of thing happens when there are no staff around. A place like Serco runs with half as many staff as we used to have so that’s quite a lot,” he says.
3 News can reveal there were 31 reported sexual assaults on prisoners between 2007 and 2011.
Earlier this year, in April, a 19-year-old complained he was raped at Waikeria Prison, talking of repeated sexual and physical assaults in a remand cell. Police say that complaint was later withdrawn.
Former inmate Greg Newbold says prisoners these days are at much greater risk than ever before.
“A person going to prison now has a far greater chance of being seriously or fatally assaulted than in the past,” says Mr Newbold.
The former prisoner, now a professor of psychology, served time in Mt Eden and Paremoremo prisons in the seventies. He says inmate rape was almost unheard of back then because prisoners were treated well and had their own cells, conditions were bearable, and sentences were shorter.
Now, he says, that has changed, and the prisoners are reacting.
“If you treat prisoners in a brutal way, they will act brutishly,” he says. “If you treat prisoners like animals, they will become animals.
“That's what you get in the United States in a great deal, and that's where we are moving towards in this country with the adoption of the American model of incarceration.”
The news of this month's sexual assault is a particular blow to Serco, which had a dismal first year operating Mt Eden prison. Just two days ago it was reported the company was finally improving and meeting performance targets.
Now its record is tarnished again - and again it is likely to be fined.
3 News