A prison among the pines
Two per cent of Upper Hutt’s population is incarcerated at Rimutaka Prison, a presence that brings economic benefits but also creates a community where inmates’ families mingle with jail staff,
Rimutaka Prison is a flat cluster of steel and concrete boxes wrapped in wire. It’s nestled against a hill of thick forest roughly five kilometres south-east of Upper Hutt’s shopping mall. You take a long enough drive north from Wellington and the buildings get shorter along the way. The top of the Hutt Valley is surrounded by those hills and the Hutt River splits down its belly. This place is home to about 43,000 people so the 1000 guys in prison make up roughly 2 per cent of the population. Rimutaka sits at the end of a tiny road off a slightly bigger road at the edge of the city. You’ll probably only see it if you know where to look. And maybe there will be a guy in there looking back across fields of empty grassland where pu¯ keko prowl. Maybe these days it’ll be a woman in a separate unit she painted herself, after Arohata Women’s Prison filled up. One of the prison’s closest neighbours, Craig Thorn, remembers the time he was heading out one spring afternoon in 2014 when he saw a suspicious-looking fella in the nearby bush. ‘‘Police dogs tracked him all the way through our property and down to the prison.’’ Officers caught the balaclava-clad Jason George Gregory hiding up a tree. He had been jailed for being among a group of skinheads who kidnapped and bashed a tourist. News reports from the time say during the trial a juror fled the country after a co-defendant sent them a picture depicting a swastika and the words ‘‘not guilty’’. According to the court report of the tree episode, Gregory told police there was cannabis up in the branches and he should have smoked it before coming down. Thorn thinks Gregory was probably just trying to send a gift to one of his neighbours. Years earlier, before the prison was as big and secure as it is now, Thorn was living in a nearby suburb where he heard the story of a boy who was met by an escaping prisoner on his property. The prisoner demanded the boy’s jersey, probably to use as a disguise. Escapes remain a top concern for local residents, but the truth is there hasn’t been a break-out from any prison in the last three years. And there’s been some form of prisoner facility in Upper Hutt for a lot longer than people tend to think. Wi Tako Prison – finished in 1920 – was the original building on the site, and housed just 50 inmates, mostly military defaulters. It was complete with a pig farm – anecdotally it went on to win A&P Show awards – and officially opened as a jail in 1967. It was renamed Rimutaka Prison in 1990. Despite the intensification of Upper Hutt, its farming roots remained. Times have changed, but it wasn’t too many years ago that 16 sheep turned up and trod down on Thorn’s freshly laid front lawn. Another time some livestock got at his gum trees. But one of his biggest on-going frustrations with the Department of Corrections is his strong suspicion the prison has security technology that blocks out cellphone signals. Including his, Thorn claims. He says the Trentham Military Camp across the road was a better neighbour. Thorn admits the prison has done good work in the community over the years, and it keeps a lot of people in jobs. And on the plus side you can find old pieces of uniform – army boots and uniform pants – going cheap in local opshops.
Upper Hutt Mayor Wayne Guppy and his wife opened a pharmacy on the city’s Main St in the 1980s. He coached top club rugby in the 90s and helped Upper Hutt win its first Swindale Shield. His dad, Colin Guppy, was a local cop who became a dog handler at the Police Dog Training School in Trentham – that’s about a five-minute drive from the prison. Wayne Guppy is well liked. Residents describe him as friendly and down-toearth. He’s kept the top job for almost two decades now. Both he and the acting area commander of Hutt Valley police, James McKay, are clear when they say there is no evidence the prison brings crime into the area. That is backed up by research from Taylor Baines and Associates, which compared crime rates between Upper Hutt, Paraparaumu, Blenheim and Masterton between 1999 to 2001 to see if the only one with a prison had more crime. They found that, per capita, the number of recorded offences in Upper Hutt was similar to the figure for Paraparaumu and slightly lower than those in Blenheim and Masterton. So despite what many people seem to think, friends and family of inmates do not tend to bring trouble. ‘‘It’s a myth,’’ Guppy says. He believes the community has a social responsibility to help.
‘‘There are families that sometimes move in when Dad’s in prison. And for those young kids it’s better for them to be closer to Dad – even if he’s inside while he’s doing his time. ‘‘If there are issues, it’s part of our community to be conscious. The community is part of that whole thing.’’ Staff at both Trentham School and Upper Hutt College have kids on the roll with parents working at the prison. Inmates donated carvings for the college’s wharenui, Parirau, 20 years ago. And its inmates made more for the college’s new complex, Te Manawa Atea. Kids at the primary school eat at picnic tables made behind those prison bars, and the prison nursery grew 1000 native plants for the school’s outdoor learning area. Meanwhile, some of their parents will remember how just last year the college’s former executive director, Donald Hancox, was paroled after serving less than 10 months in Rimutaka for defrauding the college of $375,000. Claire Maywood has lived in Upper Hutt for longer than the four years her partner has been in prison. She keeps in touch with other women in her position, and says many are glad the prison is close because they wouldn’t be able to visit as often if it wasn’t. ‘‘We used to meet up twice a week, but then their men got out. I still talk to them. I’ve found the community to be quite rude at times, especially if you have a man in jail.’’ Maywood had mixed feelings toward the prison staff. That’s 651 jobs, and counting. ‘‘It’s not just prison officers,’’ Guppy says. ‘‘It’s the support staff there. People with expertise. It uses a lot of goods and services. Tradesmen.’’ There are job ads up online right now looking for Corrections officers: Earn $51,490 while training. More when you’re done. It’s one of the city’s biggest employers and it’s one of the city’s biggest ratepayers. Last year its council rates bill came in at a whopping $1,441,014. The average home paid $2117. Council staff point out that without their ‘‘large client’’, residents would be picking up a bigger chunk of the tab. The economic benefits ripple through the community. Some bigger, some smaller. Moteliers say they benefit from a mix of staff coming for work and a small number of family visiting prisoners. Prison staff in uniform fill up at the petrol station. You can see those same uniforms in the local supermarkets, the shopping mall. As for the former prisoners, research shows the vast majority return home.
One of the city’s biggest property developers, Malcolm Gillies, speaks quickly down the phone. He says the prison has not affected house prices. ‘‘If anything, it’s increased demand with more people coming here. ‘‘The prisoners are going into the cells, but the people who need to look after them need houses.’’ Figures on the amount of staff who live in the area vary – it was estimated to be as much as 60 per cent in 2002. Assuming one prison staff member per household, in 2001 this corresponded to 1.3 per cent of all Upper Hutt households having a direct association through prison employment. Rimutaka Prison director Viv Whelan points out inmates themselves recently built a house as part of a WelTec course. It was sold to Housing New Zealand. Prison labour has been used in everything from helping maintain the Riding for Disabled School in Silverstream, to fixing donated bicycles and giving them back to the community. A key relationship is with Orongomai Marae, which helps with prisoner reintegration – driver licences, budgeting, accommodation. It’s across the road from the Community Corrections office. The marae provides the Tiaki Tangata, which Whelan describes as a wha¯naucentric wraparound case-management service helping Ma¯ori offenders reintegrate. Lower Hutt early-childhood teacher Krista Kerr grew up in prison villages at Waikeria and Rangipo. Her father was an officer who became a unit manager and her mum was a prison nurse. Kerr was about 11 when her family moved into staff housing at Rimutaka Prison in 1990 and stayed until it was largely sold off for state housing. ‘‘It was good as kids. We could go free. Walk up into the bush behind, up to the water tank. Everyone kind of knew each other. ‘‘I think because we grew up in prison villages, we knew what prison was. ‘‘It wasn’t a scary thing. It was just there . . . we knew there were prisoners there, and as we got older we learned more about crimes. ‘‘We would see prisoners on work out of prison. And we knew those that were out in the community have earned that responsibility and are due for release. I can’t remember being scared.’’ Kerr now has kids of her own who are interested in what their granddad did for a living. Little ones at a local preschool use produce from the prison nursery to make meals for Women’s Refuge. ‘‘It teaches them people do bad things, but rather than just throw them away, prison is a place where they can learn a new way of life. ‘‘It’s good having people aware of the prisons and the good that they do. It’s better than people being afraid or not wanting them.’’
There are families that sometimes move in when Dad’s in prison. And for those young kids it’s better for them to be closer to Dad – even if he’s inside while he’s doing his time.
Wayne Guppy, Upper Hutt Mayor