Six M.P.S inspect Mt Eden Prison

Press, 24 September 1983, Page 29

Six M.P.S inspect Mt Eden Prison

PA Auckland Six Labour Members of Parliament went behind bars at the Mount Eden Prison this week for a firsthand look at conditions in the 111-year-old jail. “Depressing” was the immediate reaction from Dr Michael Bassett, the member for Te Atatu. “You get the impression the place is creaking at the joints with the overcrowding,” he said. However, Mr R. J. Tizard, (Otahuhu) and that he had found the prison “not quite as forbidding” as he did during a visit in the 19505. The delegation of MPs included Mr R. W. Prebble (Auckland Central), Mr Philip Goff (Roskill), Mrs Helen Clark (Mount Albert) and Mr Ralph Maxwell (Waitakere). They were told by the prison superintendent, Mr S. G. Ward, that Mount Eden, like all prisons, had felt the effects of an “explosion” in the

number of criminal offenders.

In addition, facilities at the jail were primitive and there had been problems recruiting extra prison officers.

The quality of some of the iron bars was such that a prisoner had sawn through one with a serrated-edged knife, said Mr Ward. Bars at the Mount Eden Prison were made of pig iron, which was more than a century old, and did not compare with the manganese steel bars used in other jail buildings.

Mr Ward said a muster of about 350 inmates was considered comfortable at the prison.

When five prisoners escaped on September 11 the muster was just over 400. When the M.P.S visited the muster stood at 383 — 366 men and 17 women. Mr Prebble said later that his overwhelming impression had been the overcrowding, and the great pressure it placed on staff.