Strip searches in New Zealand prisons
Mark Hanna made this Official Information request to Department of Corrections
The request was refused by Department of Corrections.
From: Mark Hanna
Tēnā koutou,
Last year, the Department of Corrections released information regarding the number of strip searches conducted per month from June 2011 to July 2015, which was the most recent month for which data was available at the time of the request (reference C76659).
The data released also included the number of contraband finds during strip searches per month, and in response to a separate request (C77649) the same information was provided for "Reasonable Cause" strip searches, according to section 98(3)(a) of the Corrections Act 2004.
Please release the following information, from July 2015 until the most recent month for which data is available:
1. The number of strip searches conducted on prisoners. Please break this data down by month, prison, and grounds of the strip search (e.g. section 98(3)(a) of the Corrections Act 2004).
2. The number of strip searches that resulted in finding contraband. Please break this data down in the same way as per 1.
3. The nature of the contraband items found. Please break this data down in the same way as per 1 and 2.
I'm not familiar with the precise way in which strip searches are recorded, aside from what can be gathered from information released in the two requests I mentioned earlier. If the information is not held in a way that would make the breakdown I have asked for possible, I would be happy to be consulted with on how I could refine my request
Please provide this information in a machine-readable spreadsheet format, such as CSV or XSLX.
Please also include any relevant caveats that should be kept in mind when analysing the data, including the licence under which it is released.
Ngā mihi,
Mark Hanna
From: Info@Corrections
Department of Corrections
Thank you for contacting the Department of Corrections. This is an
automatic reply to let you know that we have received your email.
Our website, [1]http://www.corrections.govt.nz/ provides up to date news
and information about our work. You can also follow us on [2]Facebook and
[3]Twitter.
If you are a friend or family member of an offender, you will find useful
information on our website [4]here.
Please note that if you are requesting information about an offender or
prisoner, we are required to comply legislation including the Privacy Act
1993, the Official Information Act 1982 and the Victims Rights Act 2002.
This means that unless you are the victim of a serious crime, or there are
other safety reasons, we must ask the prisoner or offender if they consent
to their information being released to you. If you do not want the
offender to know that you are asking about them, please send us another
email and let us know.
If you are a victim of serious crime, you will find information about the
Victim Notification Register on our website [5]here.
Thanks again for contacting us. We will respond to your query as soon as
we are able.
Kind regards,
[6][Department of Corrections request email]
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information in this message is the property of the New Zealand Department
of Corrections. It is intended only for the person or entity to which it
is addressed and may contain privileged or in confidence material. Any
review, storage, copying, editing, summarising, transmission,
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From: Info@Corrections
Department of Corrections
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Good afternoon,
Please find attached correspondence from Corrections.
Kind regards
Ministerial Services
Department of Corrections Ara Poutama Aotearoa
Mayfair House | 44-52 The Terrace | Private Box 1206 | Wellington
[1]1 [2]4,3,2
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information in this message is the property of the New Zealand Department
of Corrections. It is intended only for the person or entity to which it
is addressed and may contain privileged or in confidence material. Any
review, storage, copying, editing, summarising, transmission,
retransmission, dissemination or other use of, by any means, in whole or
part, or taking any action in reliance upon, this information by persons
or entities other than intended recipient are prohibited. If you received
this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all
computers.
References
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1. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/
2. file:///tmp/foiextract20171108-108-12lscwn#MicrosoftOfficeMap0
From: Mark Hanna
Tēnā koe,
Thank for your response. I hope you can understand my frustration that it took until the late afternoon on the final day of the 20 working days allowed under the OIA for me to hear that my request would be refused under section 18(f).
I had hoped the explicit statement in my request, inviting you to consult with me if the information I had asked for was not available, would have been enough to prompt you to get in touch prior to this late hour to discuss revising my request.
The Ombudsman’s guide to s18(f) of the OIA, under which my request was refused, clearly lays out the circumstances in which this section should be used:
“Refusal is a last resort
Refusing a request on the grounds of substantial collation or research is a last resort, to be done only if the other mechanisms in the legislation do not provide a reasonable basis for managing an administratively challenging request. Agencies have a duty to provide reasonable assistance to a requester, and, as noted above, to consider consulting with them in order to assist them to make their request in a way that wouldn’t require substantial collation or research.”
http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/syste...
I will be lodging a complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman regarding the handling of my request, on these grounds.
I appreciate you telling me that “the data provided to you previously is not accurate” and your apology for this. It would be very useful to me if you could help me understand just what the data provided to me previously represented, and how it was obtained. For example, did it regard data on all searches rather than just strip searches, and all contraband finds rather than only those resulting from strip searches?
I would also still like to seek information on the number, basis, and contraband find rate of searches of prisoners. I would be grateful if you could help me better understand how this is currently stored, which would help me make a request that would not need to be refused under section 18(f).
Your explanation that “Searches by way of metal detector, x-ray machine, rub-down and strip searches are all recorded in the strip search section of the Integrated Offenders Management System (IOMS)” is a useful insight, as is your explanation that the type of search is described in a free text field of each record.
I am unsure what content may be included in these free text fields. If it would be possible to release a spreadsheet of each of these records, anonymised so that individual prisoners cannot be identified but with sufficient information for me to determine the type of search (for example, by reading the free text field myself), I would be happy with this outcome. As I said in my original request, I’d also still be happy to receive advice from you if there is other information that could be released which would better suit my purposes.
I understand it may be the case that these free text fields may contain information that could identify prisoners, and the time it would take to review them for the purpose of determining which fields it is necessary to withhold in order to protect the privacy of prisoners as per s9(2)(a) would require substantial collation as per s18(f).
If this is certainly the case for one or more free text fields, I would be happy for them to be withheld and the remaining anonymised information released as a spreadsheet, which I could then analyse.
As the knowledge I thought I’d gained from information released previously is apparently incorrect, all I currently have to go on is the description of the IOMS records from your most recent response to me. Before I make a revised request, I’d appreciate your advice on the feasibility of this IOMS search data being released.
As I’m sure you are aware, the OIA does not consider dates from the 25th of December to the 15th of January to be working days, so any request made later than the 26th of November this year will have its 20 working day deadline extended by 24 non-working days over this period. Clearly, as my original request was made on the 10th of October, this is something that I would hope to avoid. I would greatly appreciate it if you could assist me to refine my request as a matter of urgency, so that I will be able to send a revised request well in advance of the 26th of November.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Mark Hanna
From: Info@Corrections
Department of Corrections
Thank you for contacting the Department of Corrections. This is an
automatic reply to let you know that we have received your email.
Our website, [1]http://www.corrections.govt.nz/ provides up to date news
and information about our work. You can also follow us on [2]Facebook and
[3]Twitter.
If you are a friend or family member of an offender, you will find useful
information on our website [4]here.
Please note that if you are requesting information about an offender or
prisoner, we are required to comply legislation including the Privacy Act
1993, the Official Information Act 1982 and the Victims Rights Act 2002.
This means that unless you are the victim of a serious crime, or there are
other safety reasons, we must ask the prisoner or offender if they consent
to their information being released to you. If you do not want the
offender to know that you are asking about them, please send us another
email and let us know.
If you are a victim of serious crime, you will find information about the
Victim Notification Register on our website [5]here.
Thanks again for contacting us. We will respond to your query as soon as
we are able.
Kind regards,
[6][Department of Corrections request email]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The
information in this message is the property of the New Zealand Department
of Corrections. It is intended only for the person or entity to which it
is addressed and may contain privileged or in confidence material. Any
review, storage, copying, editing, summarising, transmission,
retransmission, dissemination or other use of, by any means, in whole or
part, or taking any action in reliance upon, this information by persons
or entities other than intended recipient are prohibited. If you received
this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all
computers.
References
Visible links
1. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/
2. https://www.facebook.com/CorrectionsNZ/
3. https://twitter.com/correctionsnz
4. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/working_w...
5. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/informati...
6. mailto:[Department of Corrections request email]
From: Info@Corrections
Department of Corrections
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Correspondence from Corrections C90580.pdf
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Good afternoon,
Please find attached correspondence from Corrections.
Kind regards
Ministerial Services
Department of Corrections Ara Poutama Aotearoa
Mayfair House | 44-52 The Terrace | Private Box 1206 | Wellington
[1]1 [2]4,3,2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The
information in this message is the property of the New Zealand Department
of Corrections. It is intended only for the person or entity to which it
is addressed and may contain privileged or in confidence material. Any
review, storage, copying, editing, summarising, transmission,
retransmission, dissemination or other use of, by any means, in whole or
part, or taking any action in reliance upon, this information by persons
or entities other than intended recipient are prohibited. If you received
this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all
computers.
References
Visible links
1. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/
2. file:///tmp/foiextract20171201-6740-5vg0p7#MicrosoftOfficeMap0
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Mark Hanna left an annotation ()
I have lodged the following complaint with the Ombudsman:
==========
Tēnā koe,
I would like to lodge a formal complaint regarding the refusal of a request for official information.
The Department of Corrections received a request for official information from me on 2017-10-10, regarding a follow-up to earlier requests about strip searches in prisons.
I was concerned that the information I was asking for might not be available in a way that would enable it to be broken down as I had asked. I thought that this might lead to my request being refused, so I made sure to explicitly invite the Department of Corrections to consult with me on revising my request if necessary:
“I'm not familiar with the precise way in which strip searches are recorded, aside from what can be gathered from information released in the two requests I mentioned earlier. If the information is not held in a way that would make the breakdown I have asked for possible, I would be happy to be consulted with on how I could refine my request”
Unfortunately, I received no response from the Department of Corrections (excluding the automated acknowledgement email) until 4:46pm on 2017-11-08. This was 20 working days after the date on which my request was received, and therefore the last allowable day for a response to be sent without an extension.
In this response, I was told that the information I had requested was not recorded in a way that would allow the Department of Corrections to extract what I had asked for, and as a result they had decided to refuse my request under s18(f) of the OIA. I was also told that the information released in response to the earlier requests was incorrect, and the Department of Corrections apologised for this.
I would like to lodge a formal complaint on the grounds that:
The Department of Corrections failed to follow the guide to s18(f) of the OIA.
The Department of Corrections failed to give reasonable assistance, as required under s13 of the OIA.
The Department of Corrections did not make and communicate a decision of my request as soon as reasonably practicable, as required under s15(1) of the OIA.
The Ombudsman’s guide to s18(f) of the OIA (http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/syste...) makes it clear that refusal under this section should be considered a last resort:
“Refusal is a last resort
Refusing a request on the grounds of substantial collation or research is a last resort, to be done only if other mechanisms in the legislation do not provide a reasonable basis for managing an administratively challenging request. Agencies have a duty to provide reasonable assistance to a requester, and, as noted above, to consider consulting with them in order to assist them to make their request in a way that wouldn’t require substantial collation or research. Again, as noted above, agencies must also consider whether charging or extending would enable the request to be met. And in all cases, agencies should consider whether there are other ways to meet the request, in preference to refusing it outright.”
Particularly given my invitation for the Department of Corrections to consult with me on how I could refine my request, it seems clear to me that they had a duty to consider this before they refused my request under s18(f).
In their response, the Department of Corrections notes that they considered charging or extending the request:
“In accordance with the OIA, we have considered whether to affix a charge or extend the time limit for responding. However, given the scale of the request we do not consider that this would be an appropriate use of our publicly funded resources. Therefore, this part of your request is declined under section 18(f) of the OIA, as the information cannot be made available without substantial collation or research.”
There is no evidence in their response that they considered consulting with me on how I could refine my request so that it wouldn’t require substantial collation or research. Particularly given that I had included an explicit invitation to do this in my request, I do not believe they considered this option before deciding to refuse my request under s18(f).
Further, the decision to refuse my request did not come until late afternoon on the last allowable day for a response. I do not believe this decision was made and communicated “as soon as reasonably practicable”, as required under s15(1) of the OIA.
I understand, from their response, that they “have consulted extensively within the department to establish if the requested data can be provided”. Though I appreciate this and the time it would have taken, I do not consider it likely that it would have meant that the soonest a decision could have been made and communicated to me just happened to be at 4:46pm on the last allowable day.
I have been keeping track of the number of working days remaining when responses to my requests for official information to various agencies have been received. They have been far more likely to be sent on the last allowable day than on any other day, and those sent on the last allowable day have mostly been received late in the afternoon (4pm or later).
You can see the range of response times for all my OIA requests made on FYI.org.nz online at this URL: https://cipscis.github.io/charter/app/oi...
I think this pattern shows a culture of leaving responses waiting until the last minute before they are approved and sent, rather than sending them as soon as reasonably practicable as required under the OIA.
I have attached a zip file containing all correspondence I have had with the Department of Corrections regarding this request. I am continuing to engage with them as I attempt to refine my request, with the hope that I will be able to achieve a release of information before the “break” in the OIA from the 25th of December until the 15th of January.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if any part of my complaint is unclear, or if you require any more information from me.
Ngā mihi,
Mark Hanna
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