Leading academics urge govt to drop mega prison plan

The government will soon have to decide whether to go ahead with a $1 billion expansion of Waikeria Prison in the South Waikato. The new facility would hold an additional three thousand inmates but the Minister of Corrections Kelvin Davis is on the record saying he doesn't want to build more prisons but instead wants to reduce the number of inmates. In her speech at Waitangi this month, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the high incarceration rate among Maori was a failure by the Crown which had to be addressed. Given all of this, 32 criminologists and lawyers have penned an open letter urging the government not to build the new prison. Among them is Maori legal scholar Dr Moana Jackson. He talks to Susie Ferguson.