By Laura Frykberg
A recent study found 52 percent of New Zealand prisoners are re-imprisoned within five years of release.
So what is Rimutaka, the country's largest prison, doing to reintegrate them into society?
Nightline went to find out, but in order to protect victims' identities has kept the prisoners anonymous.
Prison art tutor Chris Barrand says art is a good tool for rehabilitation.
“Probably a lot of people have the perception that art programmes are just a good way of passing time but quite often, as a lot of artists will testify, actually generating artwork and completing a painting is a really challenging process,” he says.
Behind Rimutaka's razor wire fence are almost a thousand prisoners.
More than half the country's prisoners have no formal qualification, something the drug treatment unit's art class aims to change.
One prisoner says it was relief from life in jail which initially made him paint.
“It was about, you know, an escape from this reality. Just like the things you miss, you know the outdoors and the obvious things, so there was an element that was about that,” he says.
Prisoners in the Maori Focus Unit learn carving which teaches tikanga.
“For myself, it's a type of meditation and a type of counseling, while I'm carving the only though I have in my mind is what I'm doing,” says another prisoner.
His teacher says art can turn lives around.
“This student here learning, he was a Pakeha fellow, he was telling me last week the same guy has had a big turn around from being in gangs and that if you can turn one person around then you're doing well,” says Kereopa Wharehinga, Whakairo teacher at the Maori Focus Unit.
Fifty-five percent of prisoners are unemployed when jailed but it is hoped these courses help change that, when facing life on the outside again.
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