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Recruiting and retaining staff is one of the biggest challenges facing corrections agencies in the face of a growing prison population that includes more violent extremist inmates.
The department has launched another recruitment drive.
A briefing note to the new minister says the Department of Corrections is experiencing significant recruitment and retention challenges.
On top of this, the national government’s tough-on-crime policy is expected to further increase police presence.
Neil Beales, chief detention officer for the Department of Corrections, said checkpoint It’s not about finding enough people to do the job, it’s about finding the right people.
“We are very strict about the standards and quality of people we hire… We don’t just hire anyone.
“But we’re also hiring, and the market is very competitive, and has been very competitive for at least the past 18 months to two years. There’s still a long way to go, but we’re making positive progress on that front.”
Correctional facilities require 330 corrections officers and approximately 57 nurses.
“The employee turnover rate has gone down… It’s about 20% or so, maybe even a little bit higher. There’s no doubt it’s much higher than it was before, and we’ve experienced a spike after COVID-19.”
Since October 2022, the Department of Corrections has recruited 1,097 corrections officers, Beals said.
He hopes the new campaign, which focuses on the realities of work, will help attract more of the right people to fill open positions.
“The work we do is very, very difficult and sometimes dangerous, and it’s a rewarding job, but we need to be honest with people and say that some of the people we work with can be very challenging, and some of them People may suffer from severe mental illness, and some of them drink alcohol or take drugs.
“You need to be prepared for the world you’re going to walk into, and if we don’t do that, we’re not being fair to the people and then we’re going to see higher attrition rates, right?”
The starting salary for prison officers is $65,000, he said, adding that “the work we do always deserves more.”
“If I had my way, if it was my personal decision, of course we would pay our employees higher wages.”
He could not say how many international recruits had joined.
“We’ve had a lot of interest from the islands, Europe and even some interest from Australians, although they compete with us in the same market, but I don’t believe we’re running a full overseas recruitment at this moment.”
Delivering better outcomes for Māori
Beers said the Department of Corrections’ strategy remained to focus on doing more for the “large numbers” of Māori prisoners.
“More than half of our population, particularly women, identify themselves as Māori and if we can get those numbers down it’s better for everyone.”
He did not have statistics on how many Māori frontline workers had been recruited.
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