Minister amazed at how many inmates take drugs

Press, 10 December 1984, Page 24

Minister amazed at how many inmates take drugs

PA Auckland The Minister of Justice, Mr Palmer, has said that he was amazed at the number of inmates on prescribed drugs for psychiatric problems in Paremoremo maxi-mum-security prison . “The problem is that we cannot run a prison as a hospital,” Mr Palmer said, after touring New Zealand’s only maximum-security

prison and the nearby medium-security prison at Paremoremo, north of Auckland. “If people have serious psychiatric illnesses a prison is not a good place to treat them.” Mr Palmer said he was convinced that a secure prison hospital was necessary. The medium-security prison at Paremoremo was

the only jail among the II he had toured which was not overcrowded, he said. There were now more than 3000 people in New Zealand prisons. Mr Palmer said the department wanted to refurbish Mount Eden Prison, closing one block at a time, but that had been impossible because the cells were needed.

Mr Palmer renewed his plea for community participation to make changes in the prison welfare system. The community had to become involved in helping prisoners back into the community. He was referring to the proposed Criminal Justice Bill which provides a wider variety of community-based sentences.