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Solitary confinement likely for prisoners

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Solitary confinement likely for prisoners

3News NZ

Aaron ‘Houdini' Forden remained in the tower for six hours after his accomplice gave up

Aaron ‘Houdini' Forden remained in the tower for six hours after his accomplice gave up

The two inmates who protested in a disused watchtower at Auckland’s Paremoremo prison over the weekend face up to two weeks of solitary confinement.

The prisoners scaled the watchtower wall from an exercise yard on Friday morning, and remained up the tower until yesterday when they gave themselves up and came down from the tower.

One of the two, a man believed to be Black Power gang member Damian Werata, climbed down from the tower yesterday afternoon, while the other man, Aaron Forden – known as Houdini – followed him down yesterday evening around 7:30pm.

It is not the first time Forden has escaped from prison security – on one occasion he famously used knotted sheets to escape from the old Mt Eden Jail.

Prison authorities say the pair now face disciplining.

“The prisoners will face some internal charges and it's highly likely that they will go on a period of directed segregation, which is initially for 14 days,” Corrections general manager of Prison Services Jeanette Burns said yesterday.

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Comments

25/06/2012 1:24:14 p.m.

Linda wrote:

if their protest is about cramped living conditions and not enough fresh air, then let them stay up there. there are plenty of NZr's in cramped living conditions and not enough food who pay taxes to support a prisoners "hard" punishment

25/06/2012 10:34:57 a.m.

Ricardo wrote:

A few more nights locked out in the rain and cold with no food would have sorted it. No sympathy. If you don't like conditions, don't commit crimes.

25/06/2012 9:53:53 a.m.

Gary wrote:

Why do we always think that dishing out more harsher punishment will change things? It never has and never will work so why do it? Obviously this has shown up the prison security so to appease the public you tell them what terrible punishment they will face. You should be thanking them for exposing a weakness so you can prevent this happening again. The public should be more interested in how you will tighten up this weakness and improve the security not how many times you will beat the prisoners for miss behaving. Mind you I guess we do enjoy hearing about violence especially when it is to some one else where we feel we can justify it in our mind. Then the harsher and tougher the more gratification we feel. I am sure there will be readers comments on here that will prove it. Strange how we fail to see that promoting violence to anyone just increases the violent thoughts we all have and so creates a more violent society. It is a never ending circle that just increases its intensity. The bible says turn the other cheek but how difficult that is to do, now we would just rather get a bigger bat and whack them over the head, and so the cycle continues.

25/06/2012 9:26:16 a.m.

James wrote:

Did they leave the Prison? No. Did they hurt anyone? No. All these two have done is dare to protest against what they feel is unfair justice - doesn't matter whether it is unfair or isn't, they still should not be -punished- for protesting. This is legitimising the removal of prisoner's right to political activity. Shameful.