Mental Health Service Cuts and the Prison Population Explosion w/ Ti Lamusse from Victoria University of Wellington: 13 November, 2024

Last week, the Department of Corrections announced that it had axed four contracts with community organisations providing mental health support services to prison inmates. 

This comes amidst an internal review of mental health services within Corrections, leading to these contracts being the next set of public service initiatives to face cuts under the coalition government.

Oto spoke to Ti Lamusse, a Lecturer in Criminology at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, to discuss these cuts and mental health services for prisoners in general.

They also had a discussion about new figures showing that the prison population of Aotearoa had exceeded 10,000 inmates, for the first time in four years.