File photo of Mt Eden prison. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Corrections is promising to reopen three major jails which have been closed to visitors since the pandemic began three years ago.
An in-person visit from family and friends is a distant memory for the 2263 incarcerated people at Waikato's Spring Hill, Auckland's Mt Eden and Wellington's Rimutaka prisons.
Sarah (not her real name) has a son at Mt Eden Prison, and says not seeing him has been especially hard on her three-year-old granddaughter.
"He did have custody of her so she was extremely close with him. So quite often she'll cry herself to sleep," Sarah said.
"She gets quite upset at not being able to see her dad."
While video calls are allowed, Sarah said it had been a nightmare trying to arrange them, with different instructions given to her and her son. When she finally found out the correct process, she was told video calls were only available between 9am and 3pm on some weekdays - times when her granddaughter was at school.
Corrections national commissioner Leigh Marsh said the process was clearly outlined on the department's website, and prison staff did their best to ensure parents could talk to their children.
"The reality is it's nearly a thousand-bed prison and that the demand for certain times of day obviously will not be able to be met for everyone," he said.
"So whilst every effort is made, we can't guarantee that all defendants or prisoners at that site will get a call between the hours of 3.30 and say 7pm."
The latest statistics from December show the three closed facilities hold 27.9 percent of the country's prisoners.
Reinstating in-person visits had been a priority, Marsh said, but the organisation was balancing Covid precautions and staff shortages.
The department was short of about 450 custodial staff, with a further 350 unavailable on any given day because of things like illness and leave. This was from a full cohort of about 4000 officers, with 3800 being the minimum.
Despite the shortfall, the department hoped to have all prisons re-opened for visits soon, Marsh said.
"I'm reasonably confident to say that in those sites we're looking coming weeks to coming months to get those things running," he said.
"I think Spring Hill, we're likely to see visits in some form reactivated in the coming weeks, and at Rimutaka and Mt Eden probably the coming months."
But some say in-person visits should have already been reinstated.
JustSpeak executive director Aphiphany Forward-Taua said each prisoner was legally entitled to a 30-minute weekly visit - a human right which has not been honoured over the last three years.
Although in-person visits were originally stopped because of the pandemic, the pause had allowed Corrections to then bring up short staffing as an excuse, she said.
"So it kind of was a fallback mechanism for them to use while they sort out their recruitment issues," she said.
"People, families, children have lost out because of that lack of foresight."
The news of in-person visitation would be welcomed by people in and out of prisons, Forward-Taua said.
However, her organisation was regularly contacted by people who did not know how to get in touch with incarcerated loved ones, so Corrections would need to do more to help people reconnect, she said.
