The thing that frustrates me the most about NZ politics in general, and this government in particular, is just how petty it is. They’ve just announced a smoking ban to go into effect in prisons. The line being spun is so disingenuous it hurts to read it:
Corrections Minister Judith Collins said the move was about improving health.
“Why is it that every other workplace can be smokefree except for Corrections? I find that unfair.
“Corrections is very well practised at dealing with people who have addictions and helping them get over them. This is a prison – it’s not a home.”
Though it has not yet happened, there was also a serious risk that staff or a non-smoking inmate could sue the department for not protecting their health.
Collins doesn’t care one tiny bit about the welfare of Corrections staff – pushing double-bunking and a sudden, blanket smoking ban is a recipe for riots, intimidation and worse. And fearing that someone could sue the department? That’s really a serious risk? Google doesn’t find much, even from the notoriously legalistic U.S. environment – I find mention of one case in Canada, where an inmate with asthma was not put in the agreed smokefree wing, and another also from Canada that I can’t find except behind the login wall at the Canadian HR Reporter from April this year:
“Galarneau said she was exposed to inappropriate amounts of second-hand smoke in various locations, including cell blocks. She said partial bans were ineffective because ventilation systems blew smoke around inside the facility.
But it was reasonable for CSC to balance employees’ rights to a healthy workplace with inmates’ rights to smoke in their living environment, found the board. The inmates’ successful court challenge – which pointed out no blanket ban on smoking had ever been enacted in Canada – showed CSC had to keep inmate rights in mind as it implemented the policy.”
Facts and context are in short supply, which is hardly a surprise. The mission of this announcement is to give the appearance of punishing prisoners: it’s a ritualistic act of ruthlessness towards a group who represent all the problems in our society. In other words, it’s an act of display magic by the local witch doctor, only much less useful.
And the followers are experiencing the desired emotional catharsis..
Yes, there are issues around smoke-free workplaces. I do believe all workplaces should be smoke-free. However, prisons are not ordinary work environments, but also living environments for people who have no control over their circumstances. Furthermore, the range of solutions is not a choice between “free-for-all” and “total immediate ban”.
It’s horrible policy, poorly implemented, and it will cause people to suffer while improving precisely nothing except this government’s image as “tough on criminals”.
But more than that, it’s just a small, petty, vindictive policy. It deserves to be thoroughly shredded by an active, querying media and a determined opposition. It won’t be, because NZ doesn’t have either of those things.
(The only academic treatment on the subject I can find is this article – the extract doesn’t say anything useful and my library doesn’t have access to the full text, can anyone see what it says?)
