Current number of transgender and intersex inmates
Sophie Buchanan made this Official Information request to Department of Corrections
The request was successful.
From: Sophie Buchanan
Dear Department of Corrections,
Under the Official Information Act, please provide the number of transgender and intersex prisoners currently in the prison system, to the best of your knowledge.
If information needs to be withheld with respect to individuals' privacy, please excise/redact that information and disclose what you can.
Please let me know if you require clarification.
Nāku noa,
Sophie Buchanan
From: Info@Corrections
Department of Corrections
Thank you for contacting the Department of Corrections. This is an
automatic reply to let you know that we have received your email.
Our website, [1]www.corrections.govt.nz provides up to date news and
information about the work of the Department of Corrections.
If you are requesting information about an offender or prisoner, please
note that we are required to comply with the Privacy Act 1993, the
Official Information Act 1982 and the Victims Rights Act 2002.
This means that unless you are the victim of a serious crime, or there are
other safety reasons, we must ask the prisoner or offender if they consent
to their information being released to you. If you do not want the
offender to know that you are asking about them, please send us another
email and let us know.
If you are a victim of serious crime, you will find information about the
Victim Notification Register on our website:
[2]http://www.corrections.govt.nz/community...
If you are a friend or family member of an offender, you will find useful
information on our website:
[3]http://www.corrections.govt.nz/working_w...
If you are looking for information about managing offenders in the
community, visit:
[4]http://www.corrections.govt.nz/about-us/...
If you are looking for information about managing offenders in prison,
visit:
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Once again, thank you for contacting us. We will respond to your query as
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will be made to comply with the timeframes outlined in the Privacy Act
1993 and the Official information Act 1982.
Kind regards,
[6][Department of Corrections request email]
show quoted sections
From: Sophie Buchanan
Dear Info@Corrections,
I am following up on my request for information on the current number of transgender and intersex inmates. By law the Department of Corrections was obliged to respond to this request promptly and by July 17th; therefore I really must insist on an answer.
Yours sincerely,
Sophie Buchanan
From: Info@Corrections
Department of Corrections
Hello
Please find attached correspondence from the Department of Corrections.
Regards
Ministerial Services Team
National Office
Department of Corrections
Mayfair House
44-52 The Terrace
Private Bag 1206
Wellington 6140
[1]www.corrections.govt.nz
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The
information in this message is the property of the New Zealand Department
of Corrections. It is intended only for the person or entity to which it
is addressed and may contain confidential or privileged material. Any
review, storage, copying, editing, summarising, transmission,
retransmission, dissemination or other use of, by any means, in whole or
part, or taking any action in reliance upon, this information by persons
or entities other than intended recipient are prohibited. If you received
this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all
computers.
References
Visible links
1. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/
From: Sophie Buchanan
Dear Department of Corrections,
On the 20th of June 2015 I asked "Under the Official Information Act, please provide the number of transgender and intersex prisoners currently in the prison system, to the best of your knowledge."
As you have advised that you "cannot readily extract statistics about numbers of current transgender prisoners from [y]our electronic records", is it possible to extract the number of "Transgender" alerts which have been recorded under section M.03.05.01.05 of the Prison Operations Manual: "The custodial systems manager or on-call manager must: a) update IOMS with "Transgender" Alert, and b) record in the Alerts Comment Box the decision on initial placement and all the information that was available to inform that decision." If so, please provide the number and location of all "Transgender" alerts within at least the last 5 years.
I understand from past responses that the Department may deem it too difficult to extract that data given the shape of your current systems, so I would also like to request that the manager (or equivalent) of each prison provide an estimate as to how many transgender and intersex prisoners they are aware of currently in their facilities. The Official Information Act covers information, not just documents, and this institutional knowledge should be easy to gather via emails and calls to the prisons. Where possible, with respect to the individuals' privacy, please provide details such as the nominated gender of the prisoners and the prison they are currently in.
I am making this request under the Official Information Act.
Yours faithfully,
Sophie Buchanan
From: Info@Corrections
Department of Corrections
Dear Sophie,
Thank you for your email of 17 August 2015 requesting information relating
to transgender prisoners.
Your request will be considered under the Official Information Act 1982.
Kind Regards
Ministerial Services Team
National Office
Department of Corrections
Mayfair House
44-52 The Terrace
Private Bag 1206
Wellington 6140
[1]www.corrections.govt.nz
show quoted sections
From: Info@Corrections
Department of Corrections
Hello
Please find attached correspondence from the Department of Corrections.
Regards
Ministerial Services Team
National Office
Department of Corrections
Mayfair House
44-52 The Terrace
Private Bag 1206
Wellington 6140
[1]www.corrections.govt.nz
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The
information in this message is the property of the New Zealand Department
of Corrections. It is intended only for the person or entity to which it
is addressed and may contain confidential or privileged material. Any
review, storage, copying, editing, summarising, transmission,
retransmission, dissemination or other use of, by any means, in whole or
part, or taking any action in reliance upon, this information by persons
or entities other than intended recipient are prohibited. If you received
this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all
computers.
References
Visible links
1. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/
From: Sophie Buchanan
Dear Info@Corrections,
I was expecting a reply to this request on Monday October 12th. It has already been extended. By law you should have responded by now. Please do so promptly.
Yours sincerely,
Sophie Buchanan
Mark Hanna left an annotation ()
From a Radio NZ story today:
"In a statement to Radio New Zealand, Corrections' deputy national commissioner Rachel Leota said that as of 7 October, there were 20 transgender prisoners. Of those, five had successfully applied to be moved to a prison for a different gender. Another applied but was unsuccessful."
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/2...
From: Info@Corrections
Department of Corrections
C73361 S Buchanan.pdf
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Hello
Please find attached correspondence from the Department of Corrections.
Regards
Ministerial Services Team
National Office
Department of Corrections
Mayfair House
44-52 The Terrace
Private Bag 1206
Wellington 6140
[1]www.corrections.govt.nz
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The
information in this message is the property of the New Zealand Department
of Corrections. It is intended only for the person or entity to which it
is addressed and may contain confidential or privileged material. Any
review, storage, copying, editing, summarising, transmission,
retransmission, dissemination or other use of, by any means, in whole or
part, or taking any action in reliance upon, this information by persons
or entities other than intended recipient are prohibited. If you received
this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all
computers.
References
Visible links
1. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/
JustSpeak left an annotation ()
Yay they finally gave the information!
I note that they didn't want to tell you which prisons people are in for privacy reasons. They should be able to tell you whether they are in men's or women's facilities though. - Five people have successfully applied to be moved, but some may have been put in the right prison in the first place. It would be awesome if you wanted to send a follow up email asking for the breakdown of men's/women's facilities. It is important to know, rather than guess, how many people are in the wrong prison.
Also it would be good to know how many trans people would be ineligible to be moved. You could try asking for that as well?
Things to do with this request
- Add an annotation (to help the requester or others)
- Download a zip file of all correspondence
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Emmy Rākete left an annotation ()
Hopefully they'll split this by system, since obviously what's important is knowing they're in the right prisons. If they just say '4' or whatever that's not much good to us :c
might need to make another request asking how many trans women are in men's prisons and i guess vice versa
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