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(Photo: Getty Images)
(Photo: Getty Images)

SocietyFebruary 16, 2017

Substance abuse affects 90% of prison inmates. Why are they being fobbed off with unqualified addiction counsellors?

Guest writer
(Photo: Getty Images)
(Photo: Getty Images)

Addressing addiction issues in prison is one of the best ways we have to drastically cut reoffending rates. If only Corrections took the problem as seriously as it deserves, writes Wellington addiction counsellor Roger Brooking.

In April last year, Radio New Zealand reported that the Corrections Department was paying for non-existent alcohol and drug counsellors. The story omitted the fact that most of the AOD (alcohol and other drugs) counsellors who do work in the prisons are not actually qualified – at least not in addiction treatment.

The qualifications required to work as an AOD counsellor in prison are described in tender documents recently issued by Corrections. The documents relate to Drug Treatment Units (DTUs), the prison programme that inmates with addictions are required to attend. The tender states:

“DTU programme clinical staff and the DTU clinical manager will have a relevant qualification in psychology, counselling, psychotherapy or similar.”

Remarkably, the document does not specify that the ‘relevant qualification’ has to be a graduate degree. Nor does it state that clinicians require a qualification in the assessment and treatment of addictive disorders.

Paremoremo Maxium Security Prison, Albany. Photo: David Hallett/Getty Images

Currently an AOD agency called CareNZ has contracts with Corrections to run eight of the nine DTUs in New Zealand prisons. CareNZ also has contracts with a number of DHBs up and down the country to provide addiction treatment to the public in community clinics. The DHB contracts are a great more specific. For example, CareNZ’s contract with the Waikato DHB says:

“Clinicians employed to deliver these services must have a level VII (graduate) AOD specific qualification.”

Clearly, the DHBs want value for money; they want the people treating addicts to be professional clinicians – ones who are specifically qualified in the treatment of addictive disorders. But Corrections doesn’t seem to care. Perhaps that’s because their clients are only prisoners – so any old counsellor with any old qualification will do. If that’s their attitude, no wonder drug treatment in prison doesn’t work.

And it doesn’t work. Hundreds of inmates are put through DTU programmes each year and they reduce reoffending by less than 5 percent. Mind you, 11 of the 12 rehabilitation programmes in prison don’t work. Corrections management are concerned about this because in 2011, the government set the department a goal to reduce reoffending by 25 percent by June this year.

The Department seems to think the poor performance of the DTUs is CareNZ’s fault. They even initiated an evaluation of CareNZ’s performance by an independent consulting company, Julian King & Associates. Amazingly, the independent review reported that CareNZ was doing fine.

So when RNZ reported that Corrections was paying for non-existent counsellors, Corrections’ Southern Regional Commissioner, Ben Clark, spun the story like this:

“If we had cause for concern that Care NZ weren’t delivering an effective service to our offenders, and weren’t giving the taxpayer good value for money, then absolutely we would look to put that money elsewhere, but so far we have no evidence of that being the case.”

Less than 12 months later, Corrections has indeed decided to put taxpayers’ money elsewhere, by putting the DTU contracts up for tender. The tender process is nearly complete and my sources tell me that six of CareNZ’s eight contracts have now been offered to other AOD treatment agencies. But as described above, neither CareNZ nor any of the new treatment agencies will be required to use qualified or experienced clinicians.

This makes no sense whatsoever. There are now over 10,000 people in prison in New Zealand and up to 90 percent of them have problems with substance abuse. At least 45 percent of inmates also have underlying personality disorders, mental health problems and learning disabilities. They often use alcohol and drugs to alleviate the symptoms associated with these disorders.

Addictions are hard to treat at the best of times; treating inmates with coexisting disorders is even tougher. The counsellors who work in prison therefore need to be as qualified, if not more qualified and more experienced, than AOD clinicians in the community. At the very least, they need to have a graduate degree in the assessment and treatment of addictive disorders, and they need at least five years’ experience working with addicts in the community before starting work in a prison.

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Corrections has used CareNZ as a scapegoat. That particular agency’s role in the prison system has been cut, but nothing will change if the clinicians doing the counselling can’t cut the mustard.  To use another analogy, changing agencies is akin to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; unless the right people are sitting in the right chairs, the ship is still going to sink.

Roger Brooking is a Wellington based alcohol and substance abuse counsellor. He blogs about crime, justice and prison issues at Brookingblog.

The Society section is sponsored by AUT. As a contemporary university we’re focused on providing exceptional learning experiences, developing impactful research and forging strong industry partnerships. Start your university journey with us today.

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SocietyFebruary 16, 2017

Fire in the Port Hills

Contributing writer
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Christchurch is operating under a state of emergency as wildfires rage on the Port Hills. The Spinoff intern Alice Webb-Liddall writes a personal account of watching smoke wreath the city.

Update, 8.45am: The fires that took hold in the Port Hills on Monday continue to burn this morning. Overnight the flames jumped Dyers Pass Road into Victoria Park and the fire now covers approximately 1850 hectares stretching south to Sugarloaf and Old Tai Tapu Road. 450 homes have been evacuated and many more residents of the Port Hills and Cashmere have self-evacuated; Stuff reports that up to eight houses have been destroyed. Today’s forecast for Christchurch is warm and dry.

The usual blue skies that accompany a summer’s day in Christchurch are hidden today somewhere behind a yellowed sheet of smoke. From my apartment in the middle of the city it’s all I can see. At this stage even satellites are picking up the ashy cloud pouring from the Port Hills. To say that Christchurch is a nerve-racking place to call home today is an understatement. Guides on tours that pass my building don’t stop today to drawl about the post-quake emptiness of the city, instead sitting in silence as tourists snap pictures of the growing cloud.   

The looks on their faces aren’t just of wonder, but sadness and pity for a community that’s been through far too much in the last decade.

The port hills glow orange as night falls, with the fire threatening to take out Sugarloaf, the radio tower. Photo taken from the now evacuated Victoria Park area, about 8km from the central city. (image: Alice Webb-Liddall)

At lunchtime some friends of mine went up a hill to take pictures and gawk at the sheer mass of flame spewing grey smoke into the sky. By the time I got my shit together the police cordon had extended much further. We were ushered down a street that took us away from where we wanted to be. Chances of getting high up enough to capture any of the ground-level destruction were dwindling. We wanted to see more. Ignoring a shouted “you can’t go up there, bro!” from a pedestrian, we navigated through the streams of traffic to see how deep the cordons would let us.

We watched helplessly as people were evacuated from their homes. Some whose houses survived the two big quakes will have lost them today. I’m confronted by a hushed chatter as we get closer to the hills. People are out in hordes to get glimpses of the chaos and among those walking towards the smoke and fire, the occasional car packed with luggage drives away from it. A reminder of the families unsure whether they’ll see their houses and possessions again.

We found a small area to perch where we could see the amber glow through the thick smoke and trees. A small crowd had gathered on the same patch of hill, speckled with the presence of police officers. People watched with amazed gasps and cheers when flame erupted from exploding power lines and falling trees. It was like a strange circus act.

A man next to us explained to a disinterested cop that just a piece of glass would be enough to start another fire in the dry grass around us. The crackle of flame that I usually associate with home and safety was, in this case, more of a horrible static, broken only by cracks and bursts and the crowd’s reactions. In the most horrible, terrifying, heart-breaking way, it was a spectacular sight.

The view from an incline near Adventure Park, now cordoned off (image: Alice Webb-Liddall)

A man lit a cigarette next to us and I couldn’t help but internalise the irony of smoking to relieve the stress of threat from this fire. The grief was mutual, shared between every citizen of Christchurch, and as a new resident, I felt the immense weight of this grief among the crowd. Police officers answered questions about the evacuations and the spread of the fire, and I could see the toll that this constant cycle of bad news was taking, not only on the curious and concerned public, but on the officers themselves.

With the darkening of night I can see bokeh glows pinpricking the hills, and hope, for the sake of the city and its residents that mother nature begins to show mercy to a region so harshly treated.

The Society section is sponsored by AUT. As a contemporary university we’re focused on providing exceptional learning experiences, developing impactful research and forging strong industry partnerships. Start your university journey with us today.

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