Nat's container prisons an embarrassment in a modern society

Alliance Party Kay Murray says if the best shot from the National Government's Minister of Corrections Judith Collins to deal with the breakdown of society is to pack prisoners into metal boxes meant for transporting goods, then New Zealand has been brought to a new low.

"The idea seems to belong to the days when convicts from the slums were sent out to the colonies in prison ships, and perhaps that's where the National Party wants to take us back to."

Ms Collins comment that double-bunking would have benefits for some prisoners, including preventing them from self-harming, was absurd.

"Don't worry about self-harming – what about prisoners harming each other? Have we not learned from tragic incidents like that of Liam Ashley, the young man murdered when put in a prison van with a hardened criminal in 2006?"

The idea that locking away more and more people in bad environments is going to somehow stop crime will never work, says Ms Murray.

"It's a sign of a failing society, a broken community and a country that is on the rocks. The best cure for crime is prevention. The type of selfish, aggressive society we have allowed to develop is the cause of crime. Let's deal with the causes of crime."

"The problem is that prisons do not stop crime in the long term. But the National Party likes to campaign on mindless slogans rather than deal with the hard issues."

Ms Murray says that as the Government has given up on doing anything about unemployment, it was lurching around looking for headlines to distract attention from its failures.

"If the government wants to save money it will have to work out ways of keeping people out of prisons. However this means it may have to start spending money in more constructive areas."

The Alliance says this means full employment, quality free education at all levels, a top quality public health care system, and paying special attention to providing high quality mental health services and addiction services.

It means more emphasis on restorative justice and resourcing social services and schools to work with at risk young people.

It means dealing with inequality of wealth, caused by unemployment, low wages and benefits, which fuel the social conditions that lead to criminal behaviour.

"The living standards that children and young people from working class or beneficiary families have to contend with is in many cases a disgrace. There are some children in this country who literally do not have a chance. Yet rather than help them now and giving them a helping hand, the rich, privileged and arrogant leaders of the National Party are busy preparing prisons for their unhappy futures."

Prisons need to be basically healthy environments, both for prisoners and for staff.

"The point of a prison is obviously to deprive someone of their liberty but also to try and address the causes of their anti-social behaviour. Creating a physically and mentally unhealthy environment is not going to reform a prisoner, and it is only going to create more problems once they are released."