An investigation is underway into why a 'code red' wasn't enacted at Auckland's Mt Eden Corrections Facility at the weekend when two prisoners were vandalising a recreation room.
Corrections said all 103 staff on site should have been put on alert.
Mt Eden Correctional Facility is just one of 18 prisons run by Corrections, but it's a busy one.
"That site, in particular, has a lot of incidents, it's a particularly volatile site given that it is a remand prison," Corrections Association president Floyd du Plessis told Newshub.
Since Saturday staff have dealt with 34 prisoner incidents, with one of them on Sunday.
"Two prisoners have proceeded to smash their way out of a room and proceeded to destroy parts of a unit and potentially try and gain access to the control room where staff were," du Plessis said.
The Corrections Association has labelled it a riot but Corrections doesn't agree.
"They damaged a table tennis table that required some negotiation to de-escalate the situation," Corrections Northern Regional commissioner Sean Mason told Newshub.
Corrections said they are limited with what they can say as the matter is with police and an internal investigation is underway.
What is agreed on is that a code red was needed but that an all-staff alert wasn't sent out.
"It absolutely should've been," Mason said.
This is happening while Corrections battles with massive staffing shortages, prompting a major recruitment drive.
Corrections Officers starting out in the central Auckland location are on around $59,000, and they can get up to $69,000 with extra training and qualifications. It is still around $10,000 shy of an average Kiwi salary in 2022.
"Unemployment is at [a] record low, COVID-19, and the borders reopening has meant recruitment for us has been challenging," Mason said.
Du Plessis said many people have left the job for better offers.
"One has left to do a truck driving job. They're working Monday to Friday with no threat to their livelihood, no threat to them as a person, for more money," he said.
In the meantime, staff have been flown in from other parts of the country to help.
Sometimes prisoners are locked in their cells for long periods.
"They're unlocked for an hour a day, they don't have access to rehabilitation," du Plessis said.
The Association said the strain on staff pulling long hours is leading to mistakes and whether that was a contributor to Sunday's incident will form part of the investigation.
