News Release
For Immediate Release
08 November 2016
Three reports connected with Fight Club report released
Please attribute to Chief Executive Ray Smith
Today I am releasing three reports which were referred to in the Chief Inspector's Report into circumstances surrounding
organised prisoner on prisoner fighting (Fight Clubs).
The three reports are:
• 2009 Professional Standards Unit report into fight clubs at Old Mt Eden Prison
• 2014 Special Monitor’s Investigation into allegations of prisoners being forced to take part in fighting at Mt Eden
Corrections Facility
• 2015 Audit Committee review into the handling of the Special Monitor’s Report
The Chief Inspector's Report was released on 6 October 2016. In the interests of transparency, I have decided to
pro-actively release these three other reports with necessary redactions.
2009 Professional Standards Unit report into fight clubs at Old Mt Eden Prison
The 2009 Professional Standards Unit report looked at the issue of prisoners fighting at old Mt Eden Prison. This prison
was under the control of Corrections in 2009 and was decommissioned in 2011.
The report found it was more likely than not that prisoners were involved in fights in old Mt Eden Prison. Following the
report, the prison management took action to reduce assaults and other violence in the remand areas of the prison.
2014 Special Monitor’s Investigation
The 2014 Special Monitor’s Investigation found that fight clubs at MECF existed, although there was no evidence of staff
involvement.
The investigation made a number of recommendations, including that:
• staffing levels are sufficient to provide continuous supervision
• all unexplained prisoner injuries are treated promptly
• incident reports are categorised correctly and appropriate follow up action occurred
• segregated prisoners are afforded the required protection
Corrections’ National Commissioner was concerned about the evidential basis of the Special Monitors Report at the time,
which led to the report not being finalised, escalated or formally notified to Serco.
In response to an escalation in the number of violent events, Serco had commissioned an operational review of incidents
of violence within MECF during April and May 2013.
Serco put in place a number of initiatives to address issues of general violence at the prison, such as the Violence
Reduction and Safer Custody strategy.
2015 Audit Committee review
In 2015, at my request, two independent members of the Audit and Risk Committee subsequently reviewed the handling of
the Special Monitor’s report.
The Audit and Risk Committee members found that the report should have been finalised, and formally provided to Serco
and myself.
Following the Audit and Risk members’ review, I made clear my expectations on the handling of the report, and similar
reports in the future.
The review recommended that an agreed process should be implemented within Corrections to manage operational reviews,
and to provide visibility of these to the Executive Leadership Team, from initiation to completion.
Since then, the ‘Actions Tracker Project’ has commenced. This project will implement an electronic solution to tracking
audits, reviews and investigations in early 2017.
ENDS