Taaka S1,2
1University of Waikato, 2Te Puna Haumaru (New Zealand Institute for Security and Crime Science)
Biography:
Samantha Taaka is a PhD candidate at the University of Waikato. Her PhD examines correctional staff safety in New Zealand prisons, and what measures correctional staff take to keep themselves safe in the workplace. She is interested in prison violence, workplace violence, and family harm research.
Working in prisons can be a challenging job; managing a population of incarcerated people while keeping oneself, one’s colleagues and the people themselves safe. For some correctional staff, the risks of being victims of violence in a prison environment may be an expected facet of their role, yet the violence experienced by correctional staff is no trivial experience. In prison, violent incidents are categorised according to the severity of the violence perpetrated. However, we do not know how characteristics of a violent incident may contribute to the severity of violence perpetrated towards correctional staff. To begin to address this gap, this research examines characteristics of physical assault incidents in New Zealand prisons between 2016 and 2020, in which the perpetrator of the incident was a prisoner and the victim was a correctional staff member. We investigate the contribution of situational, environmental, and individual characteristics to examine incidents of varying severity. These characteristics include the location of the incident, the type of assault perpetrated, and injuries sustained. Theoretically, these findings could identify which characteristics of the prison environment (or the people involved in the incident) contribute to the risk of correctional staff being physically assaulted by a prisoner at different degrees of severity. Practically, these findings could provide insight into riskier situations for correctional officers, and therefore could inform prison policies to reduce risk of prisoner to correctional officer violence.