They got smart at Mt Eden after last year’s break-outs

Press, 26 January 1984, Page 17

They got smart at Mt Eden after last year’s break-outs

By

LEANNE RADOJKOVICH,

for the Justice Department

The opening scene of the television spy-comedy, “Get Smart,” is re-enacted every time a person enters Mt Eden prison’s security remand block. A succession of electronically controlled doors open, then lock behind those walking down the corridor to the cells. Only Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 of Control, could feel at home entering a building with such a welcoming manner. The security remand block, however, is home away from home for some prisoners. Those on murder charges, drug importers, “those considered a priority risk,” says first officer, Albert Hardie. Mr Hardie runs the Mt Eden remand section, which was separated from the rest of the prison last October, The security block was opened in December and Mr Hardie says the public need no longer live in fear of escapes such as the two which rocked Auckland last year. In March, six remand prisoners escaped, including three charged in connection with an armed hold-up of the Birkenhead Licensing Trust Tavern. In September, four more escaped and another, on charges relating to a double murder at Titoki, fell off

a wall during the attempt and broke his ankle. One escaper was recaptured after an armed siege at Muriwai. For this escape the bars in the toilet window had been sawn through by a hacksaw blade smuggled into the prison. When the men were unlocked from their cells for breakfast they kicked the bars out and scrambled through a ventilation shaft on to the roof of the security block where they scaled the six-metre high perimeter wall of the prison, using a rope of plaited blankets. Now the windows of the ablution block have been concreted in, supervision has been nearly doubled, and a metal detector can prevent the smuggling in of tools by visitors. The security wing has also been re-opened for high-risk inmates. Mr Hardie says plans to upgrade security at the 112-year-old prison were on the drawing board at the time of the escapes and these events speeded up their execution. However, most prisoners do not try to escape. Last year’s total of 11 is tiny compared with the 3939 inmates who were “guests” of the prison during the year. There was only one escape in 1982 and four in 1981. Those that do attempt an escape are usually on remand, not sentenced inmates. “Someone in here on serious charges knows he might get a lengthy sentence and if he escapes he removes this possibility. Even if he’s caught, the extra sentence for escaping might be served concurrently with the conviction of the first charge, so he’d only be serving what he would have done in the first place,” Mr Hardie says. “Also, they may be concerned about family problems and that overrides their rational thinking at the time; they’re prepared to take chances.” When the remand division split from the sentenced division at the prison in October, inmates found the previous escape routes had been closed.

Mr Hardie believes the increased security inside the prison may account for a recent spate of escapes from police vans taking prisoners to and from court.

Concrete bars have replaced the metal ones in windows and a twoshift system has replaced the single shift working at the time of the escapes. Also, more prison officers have been recruited. “Before, we had very limited staff in the evenings but now we have virtually doubled the numbers,” says Mr Hardie. Up to 144 prisoners can be housed in the remand wing, although the average daily muster is now 95. The security remand block can cater for 22. It re-opened last December with six inmates and has been averaging 13 since then. It had closed in September, 1982, because of falling numbers of prisoners. Before re-opening, high-risk remand prisoners were kept at Paremoremo maximum security prison, which proved inconvenient. Solicitors, probation officers, and families found it difficult to get there, compared with Mt Eden which is central and close to the courts and police. Also, Mr Hardie says to make Paremoremo a security remand prison, as well as one for those serving sentences, meant finding new resources and staff. That would have been an expensive measure when Mt Eden already had a security block. When a remand prisoner first comes to Mt Eden he is put into either the observation, youth, adult, or security block, depending on his needs. A suicidal person, someone going through drug withdrawals or needing protection from inmates, would go into the observation block where they are checked every quarter of an hour, 24 hours a day. Those facing the possibility of heavy sentences are put in the security block. This was first opened in 1965 to

house a group of prisoners nicknamed “the top twelve”; more affectionately known by officers as “the dirty dozen,” mainly lifers. At that time there was no maximum security jail in New Zealand, but when Paremoremo opened in 1969, the secure block became a medium security block for those undergoing punishment or thought to be a security risk.

It is a prison within a prison, a block surrounded by concrete walls, within the walls of Mt Eden itself. <' In this block prisoners wear institutional clothing, instead of their own. They eat from paper plates with plastic cutlery to prevent them making weapons. Escaping from this block would be impossible without outside help

or arms being smuggled in. Chances of this happening have been reduced because prisoners have no physical contact with visitors. Even those visiting prisoners in the other remand sections are greeted by a “Friskem” metal detector at the door. Prison officials have “got smart.”