The Ministry of Justice is in charge of the prison administration (Department of Corrections). Some facilities operate under a public-private partnership, such as the Auckland South Correctional Facility in Wiri. The Department of Corrections is in charge of healthcare in prison. Every prison in the country has a medical unit that provides primary healthcare. Prisoners are transferred to public hospitals when serious conditions call for treatment. The Corrections Act 2004 outlines the right for every prisoner to receive medical treatment that is “reasonably necessary”. It also states that standards of the health care service provided should be “reasonably equivalent to the standard of health care available to the public”. Prevalence of mental health disorders are five times higher in the prison population than in the general population. All prisons have psychiatric medication available but prisoners that have to seek specialist mental health care are referred to the District Health Boards. The SPT showed concern that not all prisoners “received timely and adequate treatment. The provision and availability of health care staff, health premises and equipment varied widely across the facilities visited. […] The current capacity of the system to properly address the mental health of persons in detention does not match the actual needs.”

The administration adopted early on a strict confinement strategy to avoid the spread of the virus. All new prisoners were placed in isolation for fourteen days upon their arrival.
In April 2020, under the alert level 4, prisoners in most facilities were locked up in their cells for 20 to 23 hours a day. “The cells are quite small and they are poorly ventilated and some of them are double bunked so it is a fairly difficult situation for anyone to be in at the best of times”, reported the spouse of a man serving at Spring Hill prison.
Prison staff and prisoners who had been in contact with an infected person or with someone showing COVID-19 symptoms were rapidly placed in quarantine. In September for instance, two prisoners and about twenty prison officers were placed in quarantine at Auckland prison after a staff’s family member tested positive. Prison officers had to wear gloves and masks. They were required to use gowns and eye protection when dealing with prisoners suspected of being infected with COVID-19.
In late April 2020, the Office of the Inspectorate resumed its visits to prisons. After six visits, the Chief Inspector noted positive interactions between prisoners and staff. The importance of taking health and safety measures was well understood.
“We found that sites have good hygiene measures in place and that staff are wearing PPE appropriately. Prisoners have been kept well informed. They have understandably spent more time in their cells, but this is starting to be eased.“

Parole hearings and sentence in-person follow-ups were suspended between March and July 2020. During this period, the parole board conducted 600 hearings by videocall. “No hearings were lost, and lawyers had the opportunity to make submissions on behalf of their clients in one form or another in every case“ said the Chairperson of the parole board, which usually holds 9,000 hearings a year.
In early August, as the Northern prisons were put in alert level 3, guided and temporary releases of prisoners were suspended, including reintegration activities outside prison and temporary removal. A few exceptions applied.

Leave permits for work activities were suspended from 24 March 2020, under alert level 4, until 13 May.
During alert levels 3 and 4, items were distributed to prisoners to keep them occupied, among which activity workbooks containing “modules on improving self-esteem by the Centre for Clinical Interventions, maths and literacy booklets, Brain Bites Activity Books, and wellbeing information such as workout programmes.” Other initiatives were reported, such as “additional television channels, streaming films in-cell, evening snack packs with additional food, board game sessions, and additional library books.” At one prison, the Ombudsman’s team reported that those measures had been suspended during alert levels 3 and 4.

In early August, as the Northern prisons were put in alert level 3, activities were suspended, including reintegration activities outside prison, release to work activities, face-to-face rehabilitation programmes and non-essential prison industries. In other facilities under alert level 2, education, employment, rehabilitation, and constructive activities were maintained with physical distancing when operationally possible.

In August 2020, prisoners at Auckland Region Women’s Corrections facility and Invercargill prison made masks for the community. Several artworks created by prisoners at Northland Region Corrections facility during the first lockdown were exhibited.

Visits were suspended from 24 March 2020, under alert level 4, until 13 May. Interviews with lawyers were possible only by telephone.
To compensate for the suspension of visits, the administration distributed prepaid cards (5 NZ dollars) each week and facilitated access to e-mails. Other means of keeping touch were put in place, such as installing more phones for prisoners and making videocalls available in most facilities (subjected to availability and only for previously approved visitors).
When visits resumed, family, lawyers, volunteers and researchers were able to enter prison again. Thermal cameras were set up at prison entrances to prevent visitors with temperatures over 38°C from entering. Visitors were asked to wash their hands regularly and to wear a mask. Some social distancing measures are still in place to limit the number of visitors in one area.
The prison administration continued to issue weekly phone cards to prisoners after the lockdown. Prisoners and their loved ones were encouraged to use email and videocalls.

In June 2020, some relatives of inmates held at Rimutaka prison expressed shock at the physical distancing measures in place, making hugs impossible, even though the facility was under the alert level 1. After the complaints, the Department of Corrections investigated the claims and confirmed that physical distancing was not needed at alert level 1.

On 13 August 2020, visits were suspended again in the Northern prisons, as Auckland was put in alert level 3. Contact through telephone and video calls, letters and emails were encouraged. Statutory visits from the independent Corrections Inspectorate and the Office of the Ombudsman were still facilitated. In other facilities under alert level 2, visits were still allowed but with additional safety measures for all visitors.
On 7 October 2020, the alert level changed to level 1. Masks and physical distancing during visits were no longer required. Measures such health screening questions, hand hygiene and contact tracing were still in place. All visitor had to pass through the thermal cameras, and could be denied entry if their temperature was 38 or higher.

On 8 May 2020, prison officers complained about an increase in “spitting attacks” from prisoners during the pandemic. As reported by a local media, prison staff were spat at 68 times between 1st March and 7 March 2020, usually in the officers’ faces. For the same period in 2019, the administration registered 50 spitting incidents. All members of staff subjected to spitting were tested twice for infectious diseases: after each incident and three months later. The national president of the Corrections Association of New Zealand declared: “It’s a really offensive form of an assault and it’s very hard on the staff (…) For three months, the staff had no idea what they could have picked up from the prisoners. It’s mentally harrowing.”

In April 2020, the organisation Just Speak warned about the denial of prisoners’ rights and the danger that the confinement measures represented for some of them. The NGO encouraged citizens to call upon their legislative representatives and government authorities to take action and reduce the prison population to protect prisoners and prison staff.
In June 2020, the Chief Ombudsman reported on his inspection visits in 45 units of 9 prisons in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. All the facilities were in alert level 3 during the visits. He firmly stated that “independent monitoring is essential during these unprecedented times.“ He noted that the prison administration had responded to the pandemic “in a well-resourced, balanced and efficient manner”. He observed, however, that some prisoners had not accessed the mandatory one hour of fresh air on a daily basis, especially during alert levels 3 and 4. The prison authorities responded that the Ombudsman’s recommendations would be addressed.
In September 2020, the national coordinator of Amnesty International criticised the prison administration, especially for their management of the Auckland prison for women which was described as a having a “punitive culture”. They also pointed at the extensive use of lockdown both before and during the pandemic, regretting the lack of transparency of the government.