Groups protest over police cells on Home Services

Jan

Groups protest over police cells

posted by admin in Window Cleaning

Some prisoners have been denied access to an exercise yard and held for weeks in cells designed for short-term stays. Nelson Bays acting area commander Senior Sergeant Tony Bernards confirmed some offenders were held in the cells for “longer than we’d like to” because of a national shortage of prison beds. He also said the exercise yard had been periodically closed for repairs for two to three days at a time, following damage caused by prisoners. Nelson lawyer Brett Daniell-Smith wrote a letter of complaint to Nelson area commander Brian McGurk earlier this month, acting on behalf of prisoner Mark Tait, who was held in the Nelson cells for four weeks. “Mr Tait’s complaints were that the blankets he was using were filthy, both covered in faeces and urine and the walls in his cells were also faeces marked,” Mr Daniell-Smith said. He told the Nelson Mail that two to three other prisoners had also complained about the cells in recent weeks. He had not personally visited the cells, saying that was because lawyers had been unable to visit their clients there for the past two years. Although prisons were much better equipped than police cells for longer stays, there should nonetheless be a “minimum standard of hygiene and conditions to provide prisoners”, Mr Daniell-Smith said. Mr Bernards said the cells were cleaned commercially twice a week as well as being cleaned daily by jailers and prisoners themselves. Any faeces marks on the walls would have been cleaned up as soon as possible, he said. Irene Cleary of Pohara, the widow of Stephen Cleary who died in Christchurch Men’s Prison in June, went to visit the Nelson police cells after her husband’s death. Mr Cleary had been held in the Nelson police cells before being transferred to the Christchurch prison. “I was appalled at what I saw. The cells were sterile and clean at the time I saw them, but I still thought the conditions were barbaric,” Mrs Cleary said. The “tiny” bare, white concrete cells with no windows had a single thin mattress on a concrete plinth with “just enough room” to get around each side and a stool at the foot of the bed, she said. There was a toilet in an alcove to one side. She said that her husband, who was in the cell for about five days, had not had access to the exercise yard. “To be allowed to exercise should be a basic human right. The conditions Stephen and others have been kept in are unacceptable,” she said. Mr Bernards said the cells were not designed to hold people for long periods. They were designed to be as “sparse as possible” to avoid prisoners causing damage or injuring themselves. Community law adviser Carolyn McLellan said there needed to be an acceptable level of hygiene and the prisoners should be entitled to daily exercise. The Nelson Bays Community Law Service wanted to know that its clients were not spending too long in unsatisfactory conditions in cells only designed as a “holding pad”, she said. After bringing up the matter at a Golden Bay Community Board meeting, the board unanimously agreed to write to the relevant government ministers, including West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O’Connor, calling for an improvement in standards. Bainham Rural Women has also agreed to write to the Nelson Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society expressing its concern. “We want to make sure that people’s human rights are not being trampled on,” Mrs McLellan said.