Prisoners could be kept locked up past their release date if deemed a Covid-19 risk, according to new guidelines outlined in a leaked memo. Solicitor-general Una Jagose - the government's chief legal adviser - wrote to Crown solicitors and public prosecutors recommending measures to limit the risk prisoners pose to themselves and to the public during the pandemic. Those prisoners had been "voluntarily complying" with quarantine while in prison and so formal orders under the Health Act 1956 had not been necessary, Jagose wrote. The emergency provisions now extended to mixing remand prisoners with sentenced prisoners in the jails - which was against normal Corrections policy of separating convicted prisoners from those awaiting trial. Alan Whitley, president of the prison guards union, the Corrections Association, confirmed that remand and sentenced prisoners were being mixed together.

Source: Otago Daily Times April 15, 2020 23:26 UTC