Newshub has obtained exclusive, never-before-released footage of the 2013 Spring Hill prison riot.
It's come just a day after a report revealed bullying and assaults are rife in the jail, and some prisoners are still being locked down for 22 hours at a stretch.
The footage is an inside look at the absolute mayhem unleashed during hours of a booze-fuelled 2013 riot at the jail south of Auckland.
In the video, an officer raises his hands over his head in a defensive move, surrounded by inmates. He's pulled to the safety of a control room by a colleague as the prisoners lunge at them both, trying to haul them out.
The prisoners are oblivious to another guard coming up behind them; he's forced to take refuge too.
The frenzied attempts to break into the guard room escalate, with prisoners trying to smash, kick and punch their way in.
Corrections Association's Alan Whitley says some staff are still suffering from the riot.
"There are still some staff who haven't been back to work since the riot or shortly after the riot and are suffering from PTSD," he told Newshub.
This footage may have been leaked to Newshub four years after the riot, but a surprise inspection by the Ombudsman has revealed this jail still has burning issues.
Almost 40 percent of prisoners are locked down in cells for more than 20 hours a day, some for up to 22 hours at a stretch.
Cell temperatures averaged at 28degC, with no air vents working, leading to intolerable conditions.
All of this is compounded by having two prisoners in cells originally designed for one, with double bunking leading to increased assaults and incidents.
"They're small cells, there are often two prisoners in there, and the longer a prisoner or prisoners are locked in their cells, they get testy, they start to get irritable with each other and that spills into the compound when they're let out," Mr Whitley said.
But Neil Beales from the Department of Corrections says double bunking is nothing new.
"We've got good research to indicate that double [bunking] in and of itself does not necessitate problems," he said.
A Corrections report into the riot released earlier this year pointed the finger at gang-affiliated prisoners, tanked up on contraband homebrew.
But it also identified other factors which fuelled discontent in the lead-up, including a poor security plan to manage double bunking, and some prisoners being locked down for 26-hour stretches in the build-up to the riot.
It's raised concerns that this latest report shows some of the same conditions still exist.
"We've still got double bunking, we've still got people that are being locked up 23 hours a day - and sometimes even longer," Labour Corrections' spokesperson Kelvin Davis said.
"They're so bored out of their trees that [rioting] is just a form of entertainment for them. What are you going to do - lock them up?"
Since the 2013 riot, Corrections says Spring Hill has made great strides in safety and efforts to rehabilitate prisoners, and there's no evidence to suggest Spring Hill is an unsafe prison relative to its size and prisoner make-up.
"A lot of lessons have been learned. And all of those 16 recommendations that we put in place after that riot have been met," Mr Beales said.
Corrections says Spring Hill has performed exceptionally in the last three internal prison performance tables.
Newshub.
