Private prisons and the management of scandal

Abstract

In 2009, the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Act re-implemented prison privatisation in New Zealand (NZ). Subsequently, ‘Mt Eden’, a public prison, was contracted to Serco and a second prison, ‘Wiri’, was built under contract to the same company. Despite glowing performance reports, Serco’s reputation was significantly damaged when cell-phone video capturing Mt Eden prisoners engaged in fights, in full view of prison officers and CCTV, was uploaded to YouTube in July 2015. An unprecedented stream of media revelations about prisoner mistreatment, corruption and serious human rights violations followed, prompting the Department of Corrections to seize control of the prison. This article examines the potential of this human rights based scandal to challenge the legitimacy of private prisons in NZ. Where previously, prison legitimacy largely revolved around representations of managerialism, security and the maintenance of austere conditions, the revelations at Mt Eden highlighted a moment when penal legitimacy fractured for being too severe and non-humanitarian. Drawing upon analysis of media articles (n = 648) over seven years (2009–2016) from three major sources (the New Zealand Herald, Stuff News and Radio NZ), the article demonstrates how journalists quickly reverted to traditional discursive frames on imprisonment. Representing the crisis as an unfortunate aberration that could be managed through government controls, mainstream media helped to consolidate and ultimately strengthen the legitimacy of the prison in NZ.

Keywords

Human rights scandal media New Zealand prison legitimacy privatisation Serco

Introduction

In March 2009, New Zealand’s ‘National’ government tabled a Bill to revive their private prison policy. An overwhelming number of submissions to the Law and Order Committee opposed privatisation, citing concerns of human rights, corruption of justice and the proper functions of the state.¹ Nonetheless, the Bill passed with strong government rhetoric on the potential benefits of cost efficiency and service delivery from a private provider. Nine months later, the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Act was established, and a tender for ‘Mt Eden’ in Auckland was granted to the British conglomerate Serco. Over the following five years, and with the construction of an additional private prison at Wiri, private prisons were lauded by the government for ‘outperforming most public prisons in league tables’ (Davison, 2013) and offering innovative rehabilitation, employment and education programmes (Collins, 2015).

Despite official accolades, the situation at Mt Eden was less than ideal. In July 2015, a YouTube video showed organised prisoner ‘fight clubs’, in full view of prison officers and CCTV (Tait, 2015). Further revelations emerged: Labour Spokesperson for Corrections, Kelvin Davis, alleged that Alex Littleton died after being subject to an initiation ‘dropping’, in which prisoners were thrown from balconies (Moir, 2015); two prisoners committed suicide after violent bullying (Loren and Wall, 2015); staff gave ‘sparring advice’ to prisoners (Jones, 2015); a French national was beaten with a pool cue and admitted to intensive care (Cowlishaw, 2015); and teenage remand prisoners were locked in their cells for 23 hours a day (Radio NZ, 2015a). Corrections Association President Bevan Hanlon accused Serco of under-reporting Mt Eden assaults (Christian, 2015), while a prisoner claimed he was transferred after an assault so his injury would not be linked to Serco (Fisher, 2015a).

The atypical media prominence of prisoner maltreatment carried a threat for public scandal over prisoners’ human rights and the legitimacy of prison privatisation. This ‘critical discourse moment’ (Chilton, 1987: 12) provided a unique opportunity to study the limits of penal severity, and the techniques of legitimacy management by the prison system. This article subsequently considers whether penal legitimacy for private prisons was challenged by the reporting of harms against prisoners.

Drawing upon analysis of national media coverage of NZ’s privatisation of prisons and the events at Mt Eden from 2009 to 2016, the article shows how traditional penal discourses shape and restrict the boundaries within which any scandals are later discussed. In this case, entrenched discourses of managerialism, security and less eligibility ensured that humanitarian concerns were quickly negotiated out of public view. These findings provide confirmation of international research (Armstrong, 2003; Burkhardt, 2014: 19) that shows how legitimacy concerns can be ‘supplanted’ by emphases on narratives of risk, economy and bureaucracy. When prison legitimacy is threatened, government and corporate bodies engage in ‘carceral clawback’ (Carlen, 2002).

Prison legitimacy

Given their violent and coercive nature, penal institutions require a degree of popular (and prisoner) consent to allow them to operate. Legitimacy is never fully secured; rather, those in power must actively maintain legitimacy through strategy and negotiation (Bottoms and Tankebe, 2012; Suchman, 1995). Of course, consent for prisons is widespread and, in many quarters, legitimacy is conferred on imprisonment as a ‘common sense’ response. To imagine a world without prisons is far more contentious. Yet, even the most banal prison regimes manage legitimacy concerns (Sparks and McNeill, 2009). Correctional authorities go to great pains to avoid scrutiny, or the throes of controversy, even if it is just a response to alleviate legal risks from human rights lawyers (Whitty, 2011).

Having judged an institution legitimate, people tend to relax their vigilance until an event, such as privatisation, is brought to their attention (Suchman, 1995). Private prison contractors have subsequently had to establish consent among the public, especially at the point of entry into a new market (Bottoms and Tankebe, 2012). Early advocates have faced challenges, including public beliefs that punitive confinement is a responsibility exclusively handled by the state, or that private prisons pose threats to human rights (Burkhardt, 2014). Private prison providers, and associated governments, have subsequently developed legitimacy through the discursive promotion of instrumental benefits (such as financial savings) to society, while minimising debates on moral considerations altogether (Burkhardt, 2014).

The media plays a central role in how legitimacy is secured for prisons generally, and how private providers gain a legitimate position in particular. Within a corporatised media realm, journalists often rely on corporate and governmental media advisors for content (Moloney et al., 2013). The need for investment and financial interests to maintain their profit has also influenced the boundaries and nature of news content and production, and news-makers rarely challenge dominant interests in any sustaining way, particularly if it will affect advertising revenue or future access to financial or political sources (Fuchs, 2009). Sanitised representations of imprisonment, and private prisons, exist then within a subordinate relationship to both corporate and social actors.

Media engagement with prisoners or the prison has also been consistently skewed in favour of titillating, extreme and captivating news stories (Chibnall, 1977). Prisoner transgressions (particularly violent or sexual crimes) and prison disturbances dominate reporting. In turn, prisoners are frequently constructed within a discourse of dangerousness and fear that inhibits sympathy for them (Cheliotis, 2010). Their accounts are generally discounted, not from an objective judgment that their claims are false, but by a sustained disregard of their status (Brown, 2008). Their imprisonment is repeatedly legitimised as a result.

The New Zealand context

Over the last three decades, the NZ prison population has risen steadily. There are now over 10,000 prisoners, giving NZ one of the highest prison rates in the developed world (over 210 per 100,000). This expansion is led by varied factors such as societal shifts (e.g. the increased reporting of ‘family violence’), policing changes and more restrictive legislation that has increased remand (non-sentenced) prisoners and decreased opportunities for parole. Such changes reflect a deep penal populism sustained by ‘law and order’ lobby groups, such as the Sensible Sentencing Trust, who have vigorously campaigned for ‘tougher’ sentences to crime problems (Pratt, 2007). Emotionally-driven campaigns have combined with short-termist economic rationales that increasing prison populations will guarantee employment in disadvantaged communities (Simon, 2007). In this environment, criminal justice ‘experts’ have been denounced, while processes of risk management, exclusion and securitisation have consolidated.

Māori have felt the burden of these punitive shifts. As in other neo-colonial states, this indigenous group is significantly ‘over-represented’ at every level of criminal justice processing. Representing about 15% of NZ’s total population, Māori are now over 55% prisoners. Almost 60% of adult Māori prisoners are likely to be re-imprisoned within five years, and the Department of Corrections (the Department) has faced significant criticism for its lack of attention towards the prevention of Māori re-offending (Waitangi Tribunal, 2017).

Alongside such entrenched problems, the Department has endured scandal-led threats to its legitimacy (Pratt, 2008a, 2008b). Events such as the 2006 death of 17-year-old remand prisoner Liam Ashley in the back of a prisoner van, the 2007 murder committed by Graeme Burton while on parole or the 2012 release of ‘high risk’ sex offender Stewart Murray Wilson from Whanganui Prison into a house on prison grounds all aroused public indignation and damaged reputations for the Department (Bartlett, 2009; Pratt, 2008a; Pratt and Anderson, 2015). These scandals challenged the legitimacy of the public prison system to provide security and safety. Subsequently, waist restraints were introduced in prisoner transport, and new legislation further restricted parole eligibility and recall conditions (Pratt, 2006). Courts now have the power to indefinitely detain those considered ‘a high level of imminent risk of serious sexual or violent offending’ (Pratt and Anderson, 2015: 2).

Scandals resulted in enhanced punitiveness and securitisation but, given the condemnation of public Correctional services, they also heralded an opportunity for the National (conservative) government to reintroduce private prisons (Carlen, 2002; Pratt, 2008a). In 1999, National had contracted out one prison, Auckland Central Remand, to Australasian Correctional Management. By 2005, a Labour government, ideologically opposed to privatisation, had shifted the prison back to public control. In March 2009, a new National government revived its prison policy, arguing that private companies could fare better in providing security alongside substantial economic savings. Subsequently, ‘Mt Eden Corrections Facility’ (aka Auckland Central Remand) was contracted to Serco and a second South Auckland prison, ‘Wiri’, was built under contract to the same company.

While private management was initially lauded, the 2015 exposure of violence against Mt Eden prisoners propelled significant public outrage that destabilised the legitimacy of private providers. With tangible visual evidence, humanitarian concerns gained substantive public interest and, over a period of six months, journalists began to interrogate a system that had denied prisoners’ rights. The future of private prisons also appeared distinctly unsteady, especially when the government re-established public management of Mt Eden. Serco retained control of ‘Wiri’, leaving the other 17 NZ prisons in public hands.

The research process

Following this Mt Eden scandal, it became apparent that news reporting had begun to articulate concerns about the private management of prisons. The authors subsequently devised a research project to consider the scope and nature of these discursive shifts in penal legitimacy. The primary purpose of our analysis revolved around two main questions:

Which groups or individuals (sources) have led NZ media debates on private prisons?

How has NZ media framed prison privatisation and the Mt Eden scandal?

With these questions, we were attentive to how sources and frames might be marginalised in reporting. Further, given events at Mt Eden, we sought to track how chosen sources and frames might change in the wake of prisoner maltreatment allegations. Ultimately, we questioned: did humanitarian concerns delegitimise the use of (private) prisons in any substantive way?

The research process involved examination of three major news outlets. First, the NZ Herald. Owned by APN, a trans-Tasman media corporation, the NZ Herald is the most widely read newspaper in the country, with a 27.7% market share. Second, the online news source Stuff. Owned by Fairfax Media, an Australian headquartered media corporation, Stuff provides coverage from almost half (48.6%) of all newspapers in NZ and is the most visited news website in NZ (Alexa, 2016). Third, Radio NZ, is the only public service broadcaster in the country² that has an explicit aim to educate and inform. Expanding its coverage in recent years, this news source now provides radio, online and digital TV content.

To gather content, the authors used the ‘Newztext database’ to find all articles from the three news outlets that included commentary relating to ‘prison’, ‘privatisation’ (or the alternative spelling), ‘private’ or ‘Serco’. We retrieved 648 relevant articles published from 12 March 2009, when the legislation allowing private prisons was tabled in the NZ Parliament, until 31 March 2016, when the research began. This time period allowed us to compare the news coverage of prisoner rights between two distinct periods: (i) 12 March 2009 to 15 July 2015, when private prisons were officially re-introduced, developed and praised, and (ii) 16 July 2015 to 31 March 2016, when the human rights scandal at Mt Eden emerged and consolidated.

One news provider, Radio NZ, delivered coverage (326 articles) that exceeded the other two outlets combined (NZ Herald, 214 articles; Stuff, 108 articles).

As Figure 1 shows, all outlets followed a similar trend, with moderate coverage from 2009 to 2014. In this period, there were two spikes in coverage, during 2010 (when bidding for the Mt Eden contract was underway) and 2012 (following announcements that the new Wiri prison would be built and run by the private sector). However, reporting increased considerably after the 2015 scandal.

Figure 1.

Total articles on prison privatisation.

Source analysis

A source analysis was crucial for exploring who had the power to define or negotiate the issue of prison privatisation in NZ. By identifying the sources within news articles, inferences could be made about discursive biases. Sources were coded in 10 categories,³ as outlined in Table 1, with further specification of the party political sourcing under the political category.

Table 1.

Source categories.

Source	Description
Political/Government	Individuals speaking on behalf of the state/political party or in their role as a politician or civil servant
Corporate	Individuals speaking on behalf of a corporate entity
Unions	Individuals speaking on behalf of an official trade union
Penal Lobby Groups	Law and order lobby groups. E.g. the Sensible Sentencing Trust
Prison Reform Groups	NGOs that advocate for prison reform. E.g. The Howard League for Penal Reform
Local Representatives	Politicians or representatives of local councils
Māori Representatives	Those identified as primarily speaking as a Māori/Iwi representative
Human Rights groups	NGOs that specifically promote human rights
Academic	Individuals speaking as an academic ‘expert’
Prisoners	Individuals identified as in prison or as a ‘former prisoner’
Miscellaneous^a	Sources that do not fit into above categories

This included any non-official sources which could not be coded into one of the other non-official categories or which because of minor attribution did not warrant a special category. For example, religious figures.

Sources were developed inductively, using a pilot study, which allowed categories to emerge from a preliminary source count. Political party members, government workers, corporations and unions were actively involved in media debate, given their respective roles in developing, managing, bidding for and protesting against new prison contracts. Local government representatives were vocal about the benefits (economic) and disadvantages (stigmatisation) of further prison building in their communities. Campaign groups, including penal lobbyists and penal reform groups, had begun to reassert their agendas while human rights groups, usually relatively silent on prison issues in NZ, had queried the nature of private prisons. Academics and prisoners were occasionally reported, offering their particular ‘expert’ opinion. In the pilot study, those identified as Māori representatives were notably absent,⁴ therefore we included this source category to determine the extent of exclusion. In addition, we included a ‘miscellaneous’ category, for other individuals or groups undetected through the pilot study.

Finally, here, we determined that an individual was a source when they said something, confirmed something or revealed something. Sources were only counted once, regardless of how many times they ‘spoke’ across an article.

Frame analysis

In some framing studies, the unit of analysis is the whole news article (Ferree et al., 2002), while others identify a frame per paragraph or proposition (Harris, 2001). Given the relatively large data-set and apparent homogeneity of themes within individual articles, we determined the whole news article to represent the dominant frame.

Articles were coded for primary frames using an inductive analysis (Glaser and Strauss, 2009). We began with open coding, examining data to establish tentative categories, and identified five dominant frames (see Table 2): ‘Managerialism’, ‘Less Eligibility’, ‘Security’, ‘Humanitarianism’ and ‘Politics’. Once this working coding list of frames was established, each article was coded for its primary frame. This was undertaken by one author (Boyle), contributing to greater consistency of interpretation.

Table 2.

Primary frame categories.

Frame	Description
Managerialism	Preoccupation with financial or bureaucratic management (For example: attention on resources; budgets; efficiencies; performance targets; key performance indicators; consumer logics)
Less Eligibility	Prisoners are socially or symbolically excluded (For example: emphasis on ‘luxurious’ prison conditions; contrasting prisoners with victims; prisoners as undeserving of redress for violations)
Security	Security concerns, linked to sense of fear or public safety (For example: focus on prisoner dangerousness; risk management; need for extra security provisions; lack of public protection)
Humanitarianism	Effect on prisoners, and morality concerns (For example: emphasis on decent prison conditions; discussion of human rights for prisoners; commitment to rehabilitation and reintegration; emphasis on other responses to crime)
Politics	Political and corporate conflicts (For example: focus on disagreements between sparring political or corporate representatives)

In coding articles, we were attentive to the framing strategies used to promote or challenge private prisons. Some supportive frames (e.g. managerialism) were actively constructed and vigorously reasserted in the light of Mt Eden events. Other critical frames (e.g. humanitarianism) were comparatively silenced. However, as detailed below, engagement with this frame opened a critical space to question the legitimacy of private prisons.

Open for business, 2009–2015

Examining representations offered a chance to understand how legitimacy is developed in the initial stages of prison privatisation. To that end, this section demonstrates the coverage of private imprisonment from the tabling of the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill on 12 March 2009 until the scandal in Mt Eden prison in mid-July 2015.

Sources

All three news outlets had a near monopoly of voices from political, corporate or financial worlds, with very few sources from non-business civil society. Before the Mt Eden crisis, the outlets heavily relied on political sources (42.5% of total sources), with National Party members (60% of political sources) being prioritised over opposition Labour representatives (25%).

Corporates, mainly Serco, accounted for 22% of sources, with a quarter of articles having at least one corporate source. However, the NZ Herald (29%) cited considerably more corporate sources than Radio NZ (17%) or Stuff (15%). Unions, including the Corrections Association and Public Services Association, made up 10% of total sources (and were more often heard on Radio NZ than the other outlets), while local government representatives accounted for 4.5%. There was sporadic sourcing of Māori representatives, NGOs and academics, and prisoners made up less than 1% of sources.

Framing prison privatisation

Certain frames dominated the news landscape, as outlined in Table 3. Only minor variations appeared in the overall distribution of frames, suggesting robust ideological agreement regarding the contours of the private prison debate. The greatest proportion of articles (62.2%) involved terms that emphasised the economic and bureaucratic management of imprisonment. The next most common frame (13.2%) evoked strong emotive terms of public insecurity. The humanitarian frame (9.9%) chronicled clear incongruities between profit and just rehabilitation; the politics frame (8.3%) emphasised disagreement within political parties; while less eligibility (6.3%) was the least used frame.

Table 3.

Primary news frames 2009–2015.

Frame	Stuff	NZ Herald	Radio NZ	Total
Managerialism	60.8% (28)	68.3% (97)	57.7% (101)	62.2% (226)
Security	21.7% (10)	13.4% (19)	10.9% (19)	13.2% (48)
Humanitarianism	4.3% (2)	9.2% (13)	12% (21)	9.9% (36)
Politics	8.7% (4)	4.9% (7)	10.9% (19)	8.3% (30)
Less Eligibility	4.3% (2)	4.2% (6)	8.6% (15)	6.3% (23)
Total	46	142	175	363

Managerialism.

Managerialism

Managerialism, with its emphasis on bureaucratic and economic efficiencies, dominated reporting (Dolovich, 2009). The introduction of private prisons was considered ‘a way of delivering cost effective services with less capital’ (Skellern, 2010). Initial media coverage celebrated the opening up of the penal field to corporates. As a NZ Herald article celebrated, ‘… we are open for business’ (Slade, 2009). Private prisons were an opportunity to rescue a construction industry that was ‘on its knees’ (Gibson, 2012), and articles positioned prison construction alongside other infrastructure investments: ‘Roads, water and wastewater, and prisons – three sectors of economic infrastructure where, internationally, public private partnerships (or PPPs) have proven to deliver value … PPPs have shown their worth’ (Weatherall, 2009).

NZ Herald coverage, in particular, provided corporate actors an unopposed platform to discuss investment opportunities (see O’Sullivan, 2010; Parker, 2010). Some NZ Herald articles read like advertisements: ‘A new avenue for investment has opened up for mum and dad investors – they can put their money into government-backed essential services for a return of about 14 per cent’ (Skellern, 2009).

While Māori were almost completely disregarded across all news outlets – as a group to be sourced or discussed – the NZ Herald further framed prison privatisation as an investment opportunity for Māori. For example, Hunt (2010) wrote:

Maori economic leaders will target infrastructure, health, telecommunications, housing and prisons as the Government prepares to expand public-private partnerships (PPPs) in its second term. But the level of investment from the Maori sector … will depend on the ability of iwi to generate cash for acquisitions.

There was little consideration, across all sources, of the impact of privatisation on Māori. The emphasis instead focused on their potential investment in their incarceration.

There were some detractors from these proposed ‘efficiencies’ and financial gains. For example, a Prison Officers union regularly identified threats to their members’ employment. The NZ Herald reported: ‘Union leader Bevan Hanlon, from the Corrections Association, believes National’s long-term goal is to privatise all of the country’s prisons. He fears this will lead to a drastic loss of jobs for his members’ (Blackstock, 2014a).These fears were countered by arguments on the economic benefits of prison privatisation, especially to communities. The discourse evolved to one of economic stimulation of the local economy and employment opportunities (Gibson, 2014; Loren, 2014). As one Stuff article reported:

Construction of the men’s prison at Wiri is boosting South Auckland’s economy, Serco says. So far businesses involved in building the prison have been paid around $10 million. Around 200 people are working at the site with more being inducted daily. (Boreham, 2013)

Journalists presented claims that the introduction of private prisons would provide a much-needed economic boost to communities like Wiri, which was ‘one of the most deprived in the country’ (Collins, 2011).

Security

The discourse of security, promising ‘our’ protection from the threats of the external ‘Other’, gave credence to an expansion of the penal estate through privatisation. However, this frame was challenged when a prisoner, Aaron Forden, dubbed ‘Houdini’, escaped from Mt Eden prison (Radio NZ, 2011a). The prison had failed to protect the public, and a risk management discourse developed: ‘The escape has raised serious questions, with prison operator Serco and the Department of Corrections saying they were commissioning a joint review of the escape to find out what happened and what steps were needed to ensure security’ (Dinsdale, 2011). This debate was soon overtaken by the linking of public security to Serco’s attempts to engage with rehabilitation. For example, in the NZ Herald, Collins (2015) reported that ‘the prison is empowering prisoners’ by adopting ‘the responsible prisoner model’: ‘We are encouraging prisoners to be responsible for themselves, responsible for their families, responsible for their victims, and empowering prisoners to that level of responsibility’. By promoting new technology, allowing education and developing ‘innovative’ parenting programmes and risk assessment tools, the private prison was endorsed as the only way to achieve the twin security goals of public protection and countering recidivism.

Humanitarianism

Human rights were explicitly mentioned in only four articles during this five-year period, covering prisoners being denied medication (Johnson, 2012), human rights groups’ opposition to prison privatisation (Radio NZ, 2009a, 2010) and prisoners being held longer than their sentence⁵ (Sharpe, 2012). A moral framing of prison privatisation was largely ignored in Stuff and the NZ Herald, but Radio NZ engaged with these debates by sourcing prison reform and human rights groups, such as Justice Action (Radio NZ, 2009b), the Human Rights Commission (Radio NZ. 2009a) and the Howard League for Penal Reform (Radio NZ, 2009c).

Humanitarian frames largely related to concerns about the delegation of carceral power to private companies. Most of these debates occurred during discussions on the Bill before Parliament. For example, in the NZ Herald, Matthew McCarten (2009), a left-leaning political organiser, argued: ‘Part of being a civilised society is that the police, courts and prison are under direct public control. It shouldn’t be an opportunity for shareholders to improve their wealth’. Commentators questioned the idea of injecting a profit motive into punishment. However, this was met with a sustained narrative of how private providers would be accountable through penalties for ‘performance failures’. All three news outlets presented accountability in largely technical and procedural terms, in relation to statistical discussions of service quality against ‘key performance targets’ (Chapman and Johnston, 2012; Speirs, 2014). For example, described as ‘no different to any other contract’, the NZ Herald reported that Serco ‘was meeting 95 per cent of the targets set for its six-year deal’ (Blackstock, 2014a). This technical discourse invited the audience to see targets rather than people.

Politics

The politics frame, used across all three news sites, reported privatisation as a conflict between the ‘left’ and ‘right’, with National favouring privatisation and opposition parties, namely Labour, against it. For example, a typical (Radio NZ, 2012) article read:

The [National] Corrections Minster, Anne Tolley, today announced that the new Wiri prison in South Auckland will be built, maintained and operated by a consortium of private companies. She says the prison operator will be required to out-perform public prisons by 10-per cent, with better rehabilitation and lower rates of re-offending. But Labour’s Corrections spokesperson, Charles Chauvel, says overseas experience shows that over time it is never cheaper to use private prisons.

Commentaries often focused on political party strategies to realise their policies and the political repercussions that privatising prisons would have for each party.

Less eligibility

The notion that prisons are supposed to be unpleasant places was readily apparent. For example, ‘accusations’ that Mt Eden prisoners received dessert warranted media attention because this was considered a special privilege: ‘… the Corrections Association, says in addition to larger meals, the jail’s operator, Serco, is also turning on dessert every night which is unheard of in the public prison system’ (Radio NZ, 2011b). If prisons are not sufficiently austere, even symbolically, the state is perceived to be favouring prisoners over victims. In 2014 it was announced that Wiri prison had been given the informal name ‘Kohuora’, translated from Māori as ‘coming out of the mist into the new world of the living’. In the NZ Herald, Russell Blackstock (2014b) sourced a Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesperson, who said: ‘We would like inmates to be reminded they are serving their sentences in a prison, not some kind of spiritual retreat’. Reflecting the power that victims hold, the article also sourced Brian Brown, ‘whose 24-year-old daughter Natasha Hayden was strangled by double killer Michael Curran in 2005’. Brown argued that it was ‘disgusting’ and prisoners would be able to hide that they had spent time in prison by referring to their time in Kohuora, rather than prison.

Beyond these discussions, the experiences of prisoners affected by prison privatisation was rendered benign and ordinary, predominantly by not paying any substantive attention to them.

Legitimising prison privatisation

Before the scandal at Mt Eden, reporters echoed the statements of powerful political, financial and cultural definers. While the appearance of balance and objectivity was achieved through soundbites from critical actors and organisations, they were often discredited and their support of prisoners questioned. For example, external critics were framed as having ‘criminal class sympathies’ (Jones, 2013), while self-interested guards refused to cooperate with the national interest (Gower, 2009). These ‘ideologically driven’ (Holmes, 2009) critics stood in the way of economic progress and rehabilitation (Sargeant, 2015). As a result, the three news outlets shared a common penological logic that positively evaluated prison privatisation.

Given the dominance of managerial frames, the media steered debate past the point where the role of the state was questioned and ensured that critiques of privatisation had little success in influencing debate (Dolovich, 2009). With respect to human rights reporting or consideration of how privatisation might impact on Māori who are significantly over-represented as prisoners, this period can be characterised by what Joye (2010) calls ‘neglected news’. In absolute and relative terms, there was very little coverage of prisoners’ experiences. Instead, by emphasising efficiencies and diverting attention towards mischaracterising critics, the legitimacy of private prisons was firmly established.

‘Its a jungle, and inside are animals’, 2015–2016

Scandals often uncover systemic failures or norm violating behaviour, and subsequently have a role in reasserting appropriate behaviours. Scandals are, then, extremely important in the struggles for legitimacy. The Mt Eden scandal was a story with high audience appeal: immediacy, drama, personalisation and continuing novelty. This ‘critical discourse moment’ (Chilton, 1987: 12), covered here from mid-July 2015 to the end of March 2016, provided an opportunity to understand prisoners’ experiences, and how they relate to the legitimacy of private prisons.

Sources

In the wake of the scandal, now media-shy corporates were slightly minimised but political sources became an ever more frequently sourced group, with 65% of all articles having at least one political source. While National Party members (53%) continued to dominate, Labour now accounted for 37% of these sources. This change in ratio reflects the involvement of Labour MP Kelvin Davis who played a critical role in the Mt Eden revelations.

Although not a dominant voice, prisoners were increasingly sought by journalists, comprising 3.5% of sources compared to less than 1% previously. It was more common for journalists to approach credible surrogates, such as judges, police or legal professionals, alongside local government representatives (3.9%) and unions (2.8%). As an illustration of concentrated discursive power, no other source category – including academics and penal reform groups – made up more than 1% of total sources. Māori bodies were not sourced at all and, in turn, concerns about the specific experiences of Māori in prison were not heard.

Framing the Mt Eden scandal

As shown in Table 4, most articles were again framed in managerial terms (41.4%). However, where previously the second most common frame was security, the scandal provided space for the lived experiences of prisoners, and thus the humanitarian (36.9%) frame took prominence. The politics frame (9.5%) continued to fascinate, followed by the security (6.6%) discourse and, again, the least used frame of less eligibility (5.6%).

Table 4.

Primary news frames 2015–2016.

Frame	Stuff	NZ Herald	Radio NZ	Total
Managerialism	37.1% (23)	27.8% (20)	49.7% (75)	41.4%(118)
Humanitarianism	33.9% (21)	38.9% (28)	37.1% (56)	36.9% (105)
Politics	17.7% (11)	12.5% (9)	4.6% (7)	9.5% (27)
Security	6.5% (4)	6.9% (5)	6.6% (10)	6.6% (19)
Less Eligibility	4.8% (3)	13.9% (10)	1.9% (3)	5.6% (16)
Total	62	72	151	285

Managerialism.

Managerialism remained dominant, however the rhetoric changed considerably post-scandal. Initially, the response by the government to ‘dropping’ revelations was to deny they ever took place: ‘The allegation sparked an angry response from Corrections Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga who accused Davis of “making it up” and claimed he was using the young man’s death for political gain’ (Watkins, 2015). However, as Cohen (2001) established, literal denial is often futile in the face of sustained evidence. Thus, articles began to draw upon the technical language of ‘satisfying contracted performance requirements’ and ‘contract breaches’ punished by ‘fees’ and ‘fines’ (Stuff, 2015a). This managerial-speak is not merely a stylistic effect. This dry discourse works to suppress the violent effects of imprisonment by re-framing human suffering as an organisational cost, and by distancing the state from responsibility. Financial loss for human rights violations took precedence:

Failing to control prisoners to ensure a safe jail cost Serco $50,000, unlawfully mixing inmates cost $100,000, not meeting incident reporting targets and other contractual requirements cost $150,000 … The biggest fine given to Serco was more than $315,000 for failing to keep serious assaults down. (Stuff, 2015b)

Calls for financial accountability and market discipline were mirrored across all three outlets. With ‘virtually no legal or constitutional consciousness’ (Loughlin, 1992: 260), media accepted that fiscal or contractual sanctions would solve any problems. In turn, the NZ Herald continued to feature articles advertising the benefits of private-public partnerships that included prisons:

Fletcher Construction chief executive Graham Darlow says the next five to 10 years are set to be the golden age of New Zealand infrastructure investment … There are now a number of social infrastructure projects in the pipeline with fresh spending on schools, prisons and hospitals. (Bennett, 2015)

This ‘fragmented imagination’ (Preston and Silke, 2011: 56) separates business and politics in press reporting even at the height of prominent scandals.

Humanitarian

The significant difference in post-scandal media coverage relates to the increase in humanitarian frames. Negative implications of privatisation emerged and the unwavering recourse to incarceration was briefly questioned. Questioning the ‘alarming’ rate of violence in Mt Eden prison, a Stuff editorial pondered the extent of Serco’s deceit, calling for an independent investigation (Stuff, 2015c). At the NZ Herald, Kerry McIvor, a radio talk-back host, wrote of: ‘Yet another shameful stain on this country … This should not be happening. Being locked up is punishment enough. Inmates shouldn’t have to live in daily fear of violence’ (McIvor, 2015). Several commentators pointed to the scandals as evidence of the illegitimacy of private prisons and reiterated that imprisonment ‘should remain the preserve of the Government’ (Kightley, 2015). In an article titled, ‘Running our prisons like a Monty Python skit’, Jane Bowron (2015) remarked that: ‘The Government has been constitutionally reckless in privatising prisons’, not least to an overseas ‘profit run business’.

Journalists using the humanitarian frame continued to rely on those speaking on behalf of prisoners, such as their legal representatives. The NZ Herald used direct accounts from ex-prisoners in just two articles. One unnamed ex-prisoner described the reality of imprisonment:

… the worst beating he received in prison was as he woke in his cell. He says it was far worse than the attacks which he had dished out resulting in his convictions and his time in prison. He could barely see out of pulped eyes, had a broken nose and a jaw which is still out of shape many months later. (Fisher, 2015b)

Nonetheless, the discourse of prisoners’ rights continued to be minimised across all news outlets. Further, any rights talk was quickly linked to outcomes that provided benefits beyond prisoners themselves. For example, one Stuff article emphasised rights in relation to prison system resources and staffing:

… inmates have rights that must be acknowledged and enforced by the people in charge. Unfortunately for profit-seekers, human rights cost lots of money … the privately-run facility is chronically under-staffed … But many of our state-run prisons are equally under-resourced. (Trotter, 2015)

One NZ Herald editorial also called for the protection of prisoners’ rights, if not for the sake of prisoners but for ‘the nation’s children’: ‘… we must protect the rights of even the worst criminals in our prisons – if not for them, then at least to show our children the meaning of decency and humanity’ (Milne, 2015). The frame of humanitarianism, or rights-conscious themes, developed in the wake of the scandal, but its scope was narrow.

Politics

The politics frame emerged towards the end of the coverage. One result of the scandal was an investigation undertaken by the Chief Inspector on Mt Eden. Serco challenged the final report in the High Court: ‘Private prison operator Serco has started its legal challenge … saying the investigation relied on anonymous allegations and went beyond its terms of reference’ (Sachdeva, 2016). As a result, most coverage in early 2016 was framed as a conflict between the Department of Corrections and Serco. The allegation that ‘Corrections had breached natural justice by refusing to provide it with notes from interviews conducted during the course of the investigation’ (Sachdeva, 2016) established the foundation on which the debate would take place. Within this ‘politics’ frame, the coverage focused on the political consequences within NZ, rather than the incidents themselves or any effects on prisoners.

Security

Given the emphasis on the violent unpredictability of prisons, a discourse of security was also emphasised. Representations typically problematised the apparent lack of staff control: ‘The Corrections chief executive, Ray Smith, visited Mt Eden today and says the biggest complaint is staff rosters not being properly filled, which means less ability to deal with any problems’ (Radio NZ, 2015b). Reports also questioned how online footage could appear, given the ban on mobile phones in prison (Tait, 2015). The revelations of cell-phone access were as much a scandal as the violence itself: ‘Prisoners’ phone usage should be closely vetted, and for good reason. That these prisoners were able to smuggle in cellphones means they could also use them to harass the public’ (Howe, 2015); ‘Taxpayers have forked out $17 million on cellphone jamming technology for prisons – but inmates continue to be caught with increasing numbers of contraband mobile phones’ (Shadwell, 2015). Rearticulating the problem as a lack of security, solutions typically revolved around increased controls. By confiscating contraband cell phones, Serco could also claim that they had ‘done something’ about the problem (Moir, 2015). Similarly, attention to the problem of understaffing deflected attention from other systemic-wide problems within the wider prison system. By framing the problem as a lack of staff, the government could claim they had dealt with the problem through introduction of a ‘crack team’ that ‘would oversee the day-to-day running of the jail for the immediate future (Gulliver, 2015).

Less eligibility

The discourse of less eligibility was not particularly prevalent, but it was explicit. This frame was the most obvious point of difference between news outlets, with Radio NZ (1.9%) employing this discourse far less than Stuff (4.8%) or NZ Herald (13.9%). Stories reiterated the idea that because prisoners are ‘dangerous’ they forfeit their rights to humane treatment or even human recognition. Thus, one NZ Herald writer described Mt Eden prison as: ‘It’s a jungle, and inside are animals’ (Fisher, 2015b). The general impression was that violent harms are a necessary risk that prisoners knowingly take on when breaking the law. Moreover, with a construction of prisoners as a homogenous group of violent and dangerous people, the NZ Herald and Stuff emphasised their rampant drug use and violence: ‘In this private universe violence is a part of daily life and drugs are freely available’ (Fisher, 2015b); ‘The footage also show prisoners drinking alcohol, taking drugs and playing with a guard’s walkie talkie’ (Howe, 2015). Several articles discussed the scandals in relation to a broken system that ‘favoured’ offenders. Maas (2015) reflected that, ‘From a public perspective it’s even more alarming that our prison system has become so offender friendly that this type of stuff is able to go on’.

Articles regularly confirmed the law that any compensation for the violation of prisoners should be directed to their victims.⁶ For example, a NZ Herald article was entitled ‘Give compo for killer to kids’ (Edge, 2015). Such strategies stifle debate about the human rights of those who are not ‘ideal victims’ and indicate a more general apathy towards harm against prisoners.

Re-establishing legitimacy

The scandals in Mt Eden offered a moment in which counter-discourses reframed a penal issue and briefly fractured penal legitimacy. Previously minimised humanitarian perspectives were granted new significance. While still concerned about upholding a ‘hierarchy of credibility’ (Becker, 1967) – such that Māori representatives and prisoners were largely placed out of view – the media increasingly questioned the government’s strategy of prison privatisation and prisoner treatment.

However, the ease with which legitimacy was initially established for private prisons provided an easy ‘common-sense’ framework upon which legitimacy could be re-established. The continued heavy reliance on mainstream political and corporate sources, together with dominant constructions of victimhood and criminality, ensured that managerial solutions, security and lesser eligibility were reaffirmed. The immediate strategy to mend legitimacy involved distancing actors from wrongdoing and re-emphasising the importance of the secure prison.

Certain actors were designated as illegitimate – ‘dangerous’ prisoners faced denigration for their use of forbidden technologies; the Minister of Corrections Sam Lotu Iiga (who inherited the policy of privatisation) lost his Ministerial position; and Serco faced the humiliation of the Department of Corrections taking over the management of Mt Eden. In a final twist, the latter action was put forward as evidence for the superiority of the privatisation model, as then Prime Minister John Key told Stuff:

In a funny kind of way it shows it works because we’ve got a contract and the contract allows us to do something you could never do with a Government department, and that is to say we’re not going to renew the contract, certainly not under the conditions we negotiated. (Sachdeva, 2015)

The government confronted challenges to the legitimacy of private prisons, and discursively redeemed them, by denying the reality that generated the ‘problem’ in the first place.

Carceral clawback

For the politicians and corporate actors who dominated news reporting from 2009 to 2015, private prisons offered a chance to imprison with innovation, efficiency, safety and an ethos of rehabilitation. Amid these entrenched frames, the Mt Eden scandals provided ‘a liminal moment’ (Sparks, 2000: 137). Raising difficult questions about Serco’s responsibility and accountability, it also forced attention to society’s obligations to those incarcerated. Journalists were increasingly willing to judge prison privatisation through ethical values, and humanitarian frames quickly established in a way not recently seen in NZ’s mainstream media.

The opportunity to develop a human rights based narrative was however stymied by a journalistic reliance on an extremely limited group of commentators. Within a corporatised media setting, journalists relied on easily accessible political and corporate sources, or their pre-prepared press releases. The dominant frames followed managerialism and security, and media expressions of reform were expressed in fines and contract ‘step-in clauses’. This discourse was highly coded, full of reference to performance indicators, contracts, risk, security and the desire of the government to investigate the causes through ‘a “robust and thorough” review … of inmates engaging in banned behaviour’ (NZ Herald, 2015). There was a distancing from debate about alternative options, such as criminal sanctions for Serco executives, a retraction of the government’s privatisation policy or decarceration. There was almost no consideration of alternative views, from academics or prison reform groups, and issues concerning Māori (the group most affected by imprisonment) were silenced altogether. In essence, the message was that the prison system was broken but there is no alternative. Beyond the media release of discontent, no transformation of the penal system was considered viable. Instead, this ‘penal spectatorship’ carefully reiterated the dominance of the prison and concealed the ongoing infliction of pain for prisoners (Brown, 2013).

This research demonstrates, then, the uncanny ability of prison operators to defend and neutralise critique, and to engage in ‘carceral clawback’ (Carlen, 2002). Humanitarian talk soon transformed in line with correctional interests. Criticisms from the Mt Eden scandal were officially incorporated and the state ensured legitimacy by privileging security and emphasising the ability of government institutions to intervene, manage and control both prisoners and corporations when required (Carlen, 2002; Vander-Laenen and Persac, 2014).

The government duly established an official Chief Inspector inquiry. Its report, published on 2 October 2016, received limited media coverage. It emphasised a failure of security at Mt Eden, as a result of a staffing model that ‘was fundamentally flawed’ combined with the availability of contraband, including cell phones, drugs and tobacco (Fitzharris, 2016a: 4). The solutions thus emphasised securitisation: increased officer numbers, more cell searches, further detection training for staff, the identification of ‘key operational risks’, disciplinary actions and the establishment of a gang-management strategy (Fitzharris, 2016b: 2–3). This scandal-limitation exercise re-established penal rationalities and further sustained carceral clawback (Burton and Carlen, 1979). Two weeks later, the government announced that a billion dollars would be spent building new prison facilities and an extra NZ$1.5 billion would be spent in operating costs over five or six years (Jones and Young, 2016). A new prison planned for Waikeria would be built and maintained by a public-private partnership – it would provide new jobs, stimulate the economy and send out a message that the government was ‘deadly serious’ about violence and drugs (Leslie, 2016). Just a year after the Mt Eden scandal, the legitimising frames of managerialism, security and less eligibility dominated NZ’s representational landscape once more.

In conclusion, this study demonstrates that the establishment of humanitarian frames within media reporting can result in policy change. Even in a state where penal populism is socio-culturally dominant, reporting of harms and violence may limit penal severity (Simon, 2014). However, and in line with other international research (e.g. Burkhardt, 2014), the study indicates that destabilising impacts on prison legitimacy can be relatively short-lived. In a context where many journalists rely almost exclusively on government and corporate sources, legitimising frames were re-asserted and politicians soon called upon corporations to expand the prison estate. Nonetheless, this legitimacy requires active maintenance. While, in other countries, private prisons ‘no longer [have] to convince opponents of their fundamental right to exist’ (Burkhardt, 2014: 21), they continue to be vehemently challenged by oppositional politicians in NZ, including by the Labour Party. When this political party is re-elected, a further study – to potentially track new media management of delegitimising private prisons – would be a useful endeavour.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This writing of this article was supported by a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship, administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand, and funded by the New Zealand government.

Notes

Author biographies

Otis Boyle is currently an independent researcher and an alumnus of the Institute of Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Elizabeth Stanley is a reader in Criminology and Rutherford Discovery Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

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