What happened was the single biggest bust in our prison system: 20 people arrested and charged across three different prisons - Mount Eden, Spring Hill and Auckland South.
They have been charged with allegedly smuggling meth and phones into prison in exchange for cash payments.
There are bribery charges and there are allegations that prisoners were organising drug importation and transactions while still in jail.
It is not just Corrections guards either, it is also senior officers. That is actually more worrying because it tells you this is not about junior staff just recruited who were not properly vetted. These are people who have been there for a while.
These are people on decent money - the kind of money you would not necessarily expect to be corruptible. That is what a network looks like right there.
And it is not just in our prisons, by the way, that this sort of thing is happening.
We have just had a police officer busted for leaking intelligence to her Killer Beez boyfriend this year. We have had people busted at ports, baggage handlers caught at airports - and this is exactly what we have been warned about by the crime advisory group working with the Government, which produced a series of reports last year.
They warned that corruption is rising and that insider threats - where trusted people are corrupted - are a rapidly growing problem.
And it is growing rapidly. Think about this - it was 2011 when we had our first corrections officer in this country jailed for corruption. Fifteen years later, we have allegedly uncovered an entire network.
And it is the gangs. It is the fact that we have more sophisticated gangs coming in from Australia. It is the high price of drugs here, which makes New Zealand a more lucrative place to do business. It is the relatively low wages we pay our prison guards, police officers and baggage handlers.
If you still think we do not have a corruption problem, just look at what happened. Twenty people are not just a few bad apples - they are a sign that we are now like the rest of the world and we have a corruption problem.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and radio broadcaster who hosts Newstalk ZB's weekday Drive-Time Show – where this article was sourced.
8 comments:
I am certain if NZ had effective anti corruption laws and enforcement, a snatching at the surface would identify corruption at all levels in this country.
NZ has entered a new age.
As our society 'diversifies' and the old English Social Contract gets undermined, we lose that basic belief & trust in each other.
Trust Lost is very hard to regain.
Once upon a time, in the old UK, parliamentarians & leaders of all colours,
"Fell on their swords" in response to foul play.
Not any more.
Maori & most other cultures have a terrible history in this "lack of dignity" & our future looks grim.
Every man for himself !!
If the race card is played with almost everything these days, let's play it here as well.
Our Government hands out millions of dollars for so called good projects for Maori, rarely is the accounting audited, the funds just disappear, the assets are misappropriated - just a shambles.
Then look at the Maori elite and their personal wealth !
Does the SFO ever look at them and how they managed to accumulated it ?
So many very dubious Maori trusts .
I smell a lot of rats.
Shane Jones and Casey Costello are the most egregious examples of corruption in politics in NZ. Interesting they aren’t covered in this opinion piece. I wonder why.
Despite signing the Treaty as equal British subjects, quaint colonist convention is not seen to apply to those with a trace of poynesian blood, as applies to very many inmates and warders. And the threat to staff and failies of cancellation from gang members is even more threatening than that from pro maori influence faced by persons in normal current environ.
Law changes in favour of mega fishery companies. Tax changes in favour of landlords and tobacco companies. Are these the things for the people of NZ?
If ‘corruption’ also includes the failure to act honourably and objectively in positions of power, then yes, we are well and truly departed from the high trust model that this country once operated on. There seems to be a snowball’s chance in hell of ever reversing the direction we are now on. Eliminating political parties in govt would be a great start. Pigs might also fly.
Is helping yourself to cut price coffees and taking the 50%discount offered on takeaways low level corruption?
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