Waikato prison inmates were readily accessing contraband, report finds

Listen live: Corrections on issues at Spring Hill prison at 5.05pmLow staff morale, no onsite drug testing for years, contraband readily available, and filthy uninhabitable parts of the jail.They are some of the serious concerns identified at the Spring Hill Correctional Facility in north Waikato in the Office of the Inspectorate's May 2025 inspection report which was released today.It also highlights issues with staff absences and inexperience, long lockdowns for inmates, inadequate meals, clothing and bedding.It found some prisoners had only one set of clothing, were cold due to a lack of bedding, and were often given sandwiches for lunch with just margarine.The prison was over capacity for its original design as an end destination site for 650 prisoners. It had essentially became a remand site, housing over 800 prisoners at the time of inspection. The report found this change in population proving a challenge for the site's infrastructure and staff alike.Parts of the prison were determined not fit for purpose, with pigeons causing health risks and making some areas unfit for living. Facilities in unit kitchenettes and day rooms varied, with many items broken or missing.It said many prisoners reported feeling safe on site, but a significant number did not. Bullying and standovers were considered to be a part of prison life.The use of force was not always being recorded and the report said in several cases staff should have made more of an attempt to deescalate before using force."Overall, while we found some areas of positive practice, we had serious concerns with conditions in some areas of the prison, and with certain practices and processes," said Chief Inspector Janis Adair.This included hearing about and observing several "concerning security issues". She said staff and prisoners told them contraband was readily available, and there had been no drug testing at the site for five years.Spring Hill opened in 2007 as an end destination site for 650 sentenced prisoners. But Adair said over the past 10 years, it had become a remand site, with 76 percent of prisoners on remand at the time of the inspection.This change in population, she said, was proving a challenge for the site's infrastructure and staff alike.The inspection found custodial staffing levels were at 94 percent, but that morale was low amongst custodial staff and unplanned absences, like sick leave, were common and left units short staffed.Adair said 38 percent of custodial staff also had less than two years of experience working in a New Zealand prison and many senior and principal corrections officers lacked experience in their roles."The lack of availability of custodial staff and the unsuitable infrastructure had significant impacts across the prison."She said morale was high in the health team, but many felt unsupported by custodial staff, and some did not always feel safe as custodial staff would sometimes leave them unsupervised with prisoners.Corrections custodial services commissioner Sean Mason said it was positive to see many of the areas identified for improvement in the report aligned with work Corrections had already addressed or that was underway since the inspection was carried out more than a year ago."Many prisoners go to extreme lengths to get contraband into prisons and Corrections is constantly working to stay one step ahead in contraband prevention."At Spring Hill, Mason said the intelligence team had developed a contraband dashboard which provided staff with information on trends, patterns and emerging risks.Drug testing was reintroduced in November 2025 after it was suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic, when all non-essential prison activities were paused to reduce operational risks and support public health requirements and when staffing pressures were at their tightest."Throughout the period when drug testing was suspended, the site maintained a strong focus on identifying and managing drug-related risks."The current testing activity, combined with ongoing searching routines, intelligence-led monitoring, the vigilance of dog handlers, comprehensive screening of all mail and parcels, and continual assessment of operational and intelligence information, aims to ensure that drug-related risks are being actively identified, tracked, and managed across the site."Mason also said following an extensive nationwide recruitment drive, there was now an additional 45 custodial staff working at the site, and this had reduced the day-to-day impact on the prison when staff called in sick.The majority of staff, he said, now had more than two years of service.