Stay out of trouble if you don't like prison food - Collins

STEVE HOPKINS AND ANDREA VANCE

Corrections Minister Judith Collins has a message for the long-term prisoner who is demanding healthier menus: "Stay out of jail if you don't like the food".

Dean Wickliffe, one of New Zealand's longest-serving inmates, wrote to Corrections boss Ray Smith asking for greater variety of more affordable and healthy food for purchase in prisons.

But Collins said: ''If he was so worried about the food in prison, he had choices in his life.

''One of them was to not commit crime to end up in prison for long stretches. Hopefully before committing any other crimes, he would like to remember the food he found so boring and tasteless.''

Collins said Corrections made no money from selling ''treats".

She said a smoking ban, in force from July, would mean prisoners would have more cash to spend on goodies.

Prisoners can spend up to $70 a week on food and toiletry items from a nationally-managed list which includes 13 items of confectionary but only three items of fruit.

Wickliffe, a connoisseur of prison food, having spent almost 36 years behind bars, wants more varieties of fruit and vegetables, and a selection of healthier cereals and biscuits added.

The 62-year-old convicted killer, who recently served almost three years jail for possession of a loaded Colt .45 revolver and Class B drug fantasy, said prisoners relied on ''the prison canteen'' because provided meals were often too small or inedible.

''Sometimes you just can't eat the dinner ... they give out ... it gets that bad,'' Wickliffe said from his home in the Bay of Plenty settlement of Maketu.

He said the canteen food was ''high-salt, high-fat, high-sugar rubbish'' and ''action needs to be taken now''.

''It is obvious that no regard was given to the nutritional value of the items we were allowed to buy ...  the very worst type of foods which [affect] the health of prisoners over time, especially long-term inmates and which encourage unhealthy eating practises that result in obesity,'' Wickliffe wrote to Smith.

Wickliffe's complaint follows several similar ones during the last two years from career criminal Arthur Taylor concerning food prices at Auckland's high security prison at Paremoremo.

Taylor, who was earlier this month sentenced to seven years' jail for conspiracy to provide P from behind bars,  successfully challenged Corrections, through the Office of the Ombudsmen, to reduce fruit prices.

Wickliffe said Taylor's complaint led to cheaper fruit but also a reduced quality. Wickliffe, who started fulltime work for a steel company in Tauranga last week, said that since leaving Springhill Prison the cost of a banana had almost halved from $1 each to 55 cents, ''which shows how much of a mark-up there was''.

''It's just not acceptable to allow prisoners to be exploited by greedy private contractors ...  we are literally a captive market for them and are being held ransom while the department turn a blind eye,'' he said.

Wickliffe said canteen prices impacted heavily on inmates whose families often struggled to give them money to buy additional food. 

Corrections said it regularly reviewed the prison canteen menu and acted on complaints and requests. In the last 12 months it had received 10 complaints.

Corrections said it was in the process of adding more healthy food options to the menu including a range of ''nuts, muesli bars and fruit teas''.

* In 1972 Wickliffe was convicted of murdering Wellington jeweller Paul Miet during an armed robbery. He maintained the death was accidental, but it took him 12 years to have the charge reduced to manslaughter. His life sentence, however, remained. 

He received another life sentence in 1997 for the murder of Bay of Plenty man Richard Bluett, but that conviction was quashed in 1998 and he was acquitted on retrial in 1999.

Wickliffe is the only inmate to have escaped twice from Paremoremo prison.

Food prisoners can purchase:

Barley Sugar - Classic, 110G, $2.73

Party Pack,  225g, $1.71

Pineapple Bites, 250, $1.84

Strong Mints, 200G, $2.51

Fruit Bursts, 190G, $2.51

Crunchie, 50g, $1.03

Moro 60g  $2.69

Peanut Slab, 50g, $1.24

Dairy Milk Chocoloate 50g

Tim Tams, 200g, $2.41

Chocolate Chip, 250g, $1.73

Gingernuts, 250g, $1.16

Creams, 375g, $2.04

Fruit, all each:

Apples  $0.26

Oranges $0.41

Bananas $0.39

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