1. Lawyers for some of the 13 men held in Aotearoa’s most punishing prison unit have welcomed the Prison Inspectorate’s first report on the Prisoners of Extreme Risk Unit (PERU). It reiterates, and builds upon, the previous report on Separation and Isolation by the Inspectorate in June 2023 which made 59 recommendations, all of which were accepted by Corrections.
2. Described as a “super-maxi” unit and a “prison within a prison”, the PERU was originally built for one high profile prisoner but was expanded to now accomodate 13 men over two wings of Auckland Prison. Not all have been convicted of serious offending: some of them are on remand, awaiting trial. The Inspectorate made 12 findings about the PERU, many centred on the treatment of prisoners held there.
3. Amanda Hill and Emma Priest from The Law Association’s Parole and Prisoner Rights Committee endorse the report. “The PERU regime is brutal” says Emma Priest, a barrister representing some of the men in the PERU. “The men live their lives in a 9 sq metre cell. They live in almost complete isolation. Most access a small yard attached to their cell with little sunlight or opportunity for meaningful physical activity. Rehabilitation services are extremely limited. Non-contact visits only are permitted. It is causing enormous psychological harm” says Priest.
4. The PERU operates in a way which is vastly different to the rest of the prison system” says Amanda Hill, another lawyer for some of the men in the PERU. “Placement in PERU overrides all of the normal checks and balances in the system, such as security classification. There is no ‘extreme risk’ classification and there are few checks and balances on the small number of people in control of the PERU” says Hill. “There are few criteria for entry to the PERU and no clear exit. This means some of the men have been under the regime for years”.

1. The Inspectorate recorded that the average length of days spent in the PERU for the 13 men who were currently housed there was 632 days for the period ending 24 July 2023. Five of the men had been there for over 900 days, and two for over 800 days. “There is no clear path out of the PERU, regardless of exemplary behaviour and a commitment to change” says Priest. “This is reinforced by the comments of the Inspectorate. Some of the men describe the PERU as a dead end”.

1. “International law prohibits more than 15 days of solitary confinement, defined as being confined for 22 hours a day without meaningful human contact. These men have been in solitary confinement for an extreme period of time and easily meet that definition” says Hill.
2. The Inspectorate report noted several ongoing issues in the PERU, including complaints about staff not being logged in the system, instead kept in a separate file in the PERU itself. A well-known requirement of segregation, a daily visit from a health professional, was not adhered to. “All of these checks and balances help keep the system legal and honest” says Hill. They are needed across our prison system but they are absolutey vital in the PERU given the ongoing treatment of these men”.
3. “The Inspectorate report recorded the deep concern from mental health clinicians who visit the PERU about the psychological impact of extended solitary confinement” says Emma Priest. “Those concerns will also have been made known to Corrections, but we have yet to see results”
4. “We know it can be hard for the public to have sympathy for people who are constantly characterised as the worst men in our prison system” says Priest. The best way to test how a country adheres to human rights is to consider how they treat their weakest members. Corrections needs to adhere to the domestic and international law” says Priest. “The State requires these men to abide by the law and it has a duty to do the same”.

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