Fears have been raised in Masterton that arming Rimutaka Prison guards will risk an arms race behind bars and make bullies of some officers.
Two Masterton men, one a serving officer at the regional jail and the other a former Rimutaka Prison officer who both declined to be named, were speaking yesterday in the wake of Corrections Association calls to arm officers after a guard was found savagely beaten and lying in a pool of blood at the prison last Friday morning.
The serving Masterton officer said he knows the injured guard, who received skull fractures and may lose an eye after a gang member inmate attacked him with a broom handle.
He said the injured man is now in a comfortable condition in Wellington Hospital but is taking no visitors.
"He's not the kind of guy you expect would be attacked and I believe that armed guards in that situation wouldn't have made a difference anyway," he said.
"If prison officers are armed you would actually increase the risk of violence against guards the inmates know they may get it and they would find ways to get in first," he said.
"Arming guards will take things up a notch. Then we'd be facing the same levels of violence as American jails. It's about minimising the risks not increasing them."
He said batons and protective gear are already available to guards facing a jail riot and while he disagrees with the routine arming of officers, he does believe officers should have access to pepper spray when needed.
"I'm against the arming of guards, which would just be a knee-jerk reaction. When you consider the number of inmates in prison, incidents like the attack on Friday are very rare," he said.
He said a worsening problem facing prison administration is the ratio of inexperienced officers now serving and an exodus of veteran officers, which also adds to the risk of inmate assaults on officers.
The former Rimutaka Prison guard, who worked for three years at the jail, said arming guards would make bullies of some prison officers.
"The danger of giving officers Tasers is like giving police officers guns. There are (prison) officers who are quite gung-ho and quite willing to use force. That would give them even more power. Some of them love the confrontation."
He said a major problem for prison administration is a lack of staff.
He resigned from Rimutaka Prison several years ago, he said, at a time when there were usually two officers in a prison yard and a third on the gate in a block containing up to 60 inmates.
"You've got two officers looking after 60 offenders. It's not so much what weapons you can get hold of as the numbers. Two people for 60 inmates unbelievable."
Paul Monk, New Zealand Department of Corrections southern regional manager, said the department and police have launched a joint inquiry into the assault on Friday.
"We are taking this matter seriously. One assault is one too many. Unfortunately, we work in a volatile environment and they do occur on occasion," he said.
"There are a number of Corrections Officers and prisoners at Rimutaka Prison who come from Wairarapa. We are unable to provide precise figures because this will involve searching each prisoner and employee's individual file," he said.
Despite an increasing prisoner population across New Zealand, he said, serious prisoner-on-staff assaults have decreased 90 per cent over the past decade with six serious assaults on staff by inmates in a 12-month period from 2006. This year two other prison guards have received skull fractures in prisoner attacks in New Plymouth Prison and in a Hawke's Bay jail.
Arming prison guards 'opens door to violence'
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