糖心Vlog

Ara Poutama Aotearoa (the Department of Corrections) maintains detailed records of all prison violent incidents, which is known as the COBRA database.  This research explores how this COBRA data can be combined with mapping software, called Geographical Information Systems (GIS), to help understand and reduce prison violence.

Prison violence is a serious and complex 鈥渆cological鈥� problem involving many dimensions, including the characteristics of the prisoner population, the experience of staff and the prison management techniques being used, as well as the physical layout of the prison. Clearly GIS can only assist in understanding a small part of this problem.

The overall research project is called Nga T奴manakotanga 鈥� Turning the Tide on Prison Violence, and the novel use of GIS was used for exploring the physical layout of prison units in relation to the number of prisoners (prisoner density), including the proportion of indoor and outdoor space, as well as produce heat maps showing the exact locations of violence within the prison units. The heat maps of prison violence have been useful for encouraging conversations about prison violence and made an important contribution to the reducing prison violence through the 鈥淧romoting Risk Intervention by Situational Management鈥� (PRISM) framework.