Prison Smoking Ban

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?)

6 thoughts on “Prison Smoking Ban”

  1. Here’s an interesting article on the move to smoke free prisons in the US among the factoids coming from there:

    – prison guards are just as heavy smokers
    – there’s a 1993 US Supreme Court ruling that being held in a smoke-filled prison may constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
    – Concerns that inmates would turn violent if they couldn’t smoke have so far been unfounded
    – the price of 1 smuggled cigarette is now $10 in…
    -Colorado who’s 20,000 prisoners were barred from smoking in 1999
    -In Texas(banned) it’s a felony to provide tobacco to inmates
    -At one minimum-security prison, a bow and arrow were used to launch tobacco over a fence.

    http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-07-21-prison-smoking-usat_x.htm

  2. Listening to one of the prison guard union guys on the radio yesterday I go the impression that they have suggested and might even support a sensibly managed smoke free policy, especially as it would mean that prisoners might no longer have access to lighters (a move he felt would make the work environment safer)… with support and nicotine patches etc. He suggested moving to smoking in the yards, followed by only allowing smoking at certain times.

    This policy is far more punitive than an ordinary smoke-free work place, as workers have (or should have) breaks and can leave at the end of their working day!!! My workplace is ‘smoke free’, but there’s a covered veranda area with a seat and an outdoor area where the smokers hang out…

    And I really wonder why they couldn’t have a covered smoking area in the yard if what they are concerned about is protecting non-smokers…

    I’m in favour of helping people quit… smoking… other drugs… in a constructive way. But this policy, as it is mooted sucks!

    But it comes to why you think we put people in prison… I think prison should be a last resort to protect society from people who pose a genuine danger and need to be locked up temporarily (or permanently if we can’t hlp them)… I think prisoners should have access to gym facilities, literacy programmes, work skills programmes, extramural study, counselling, whatever it takes to “rehabilitate” them.

    If punishment for its own sake is okay, then this is a great policy!

  3. National, you’re doing it all wrong. This is completely backwards.

    I think that, in light of the drugs that are currently illegal that have less impact on health than cigarettes and the unwillingness of any current or recent NZ government to even consider decriminalizing these drugs, cigarettes should be made illegal just for consistency.

    Except for in prison. People should be allowed to smoke in prison. After all, they’ve already broken the law and thus given up their human rights. Provided that smoking is only done in concentrated areas with no prison workers, only prisoners will be harmed by smoking, and who cares if prisoners are harmed?

    Then we can get on with the good and honest work of locking up ciagrette smokers to fill our soon-to-be-privatized prisons. That way we can ensure that we have the slave labour force we so desperately need to make our country attractive to overseas investors.

    Consider: if we lock up people with lucrative jobs because of their smoking habits, while they are in prison we can force them to work without pay for the benefit of the government. What other country would have this advantage?

    I am applying for a job as a policy advisor right now.

  4. I’d be cautious about reading anything of value into the claims in that USA Today article. A lot of it amounts to a list of unsourced statements.

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