Hemi Sampson Tipa-McQueen, 26, and Charlie Braam, 35, appeared in the Dunedin District Court last week after admitting their involvement in a pack attack on a rival gang member at the Otago Corrections Facility (OCF) last year.
Was Tipa-McQueen remorseful?
"[The victim] deserved it," he told Probation when interviewed.
It was another violent incident at the prison in a year marred by violence, featuring assaults on staff and inter-gang rivalries, which have increasingly made headlines since OCF became the South Island’s only high-security facility.
Numbers released to the Otago Daily Times showed 57% of inmates were identified as gang members last year, in contrast to 40% five years earlier.
Three men, understood to be Mongrel Mob-affiliated, approached the victim in the exercise yard on June 25.
CCTV captured the frenzied assault in which they punched and kicked the man’s head and body repeatedly.
Judge David Robinson called it "a brutal attack".
"Numerous blows were delivered ... in fact, so quickly I found it really difficult to count them," he said.
Braam was on the phone while the original trio inflicted the damage but he took time out from his call to kick the victim once in the head before continuing his conversation.
"During the assault the victim holds his arm up to try and protect himself from the kicks and punches. The assault lasted about 47 seconds," a police summary said.
The court heard the group left the man on the ground as they exchanged celebratory hugs but it did not mark the end of the violence.
All four prisoners then circled the victim and Braam punched him, sparking another flurry of blows from the others, lasting a further 18 seconds.
"There’s a gang warfare element ... this victim was set upon because he was from the wrong gang," Judge Robinson said.
"He had nowhere to go. He was stuck in [the] exercise yard with you and your co-offenders ... effectively cornered, with no way to defend himself."
The victim was hospitalised and referred to the fracture clinic.
Braam was as unrepentant as his co-defendant, arguing the incident was a "setup" by prison staff.
On the charge of assault with intent to injure, he had a year added to his sentence while Tipa-McQueen got 15 months. The other two prisoners involved have yet to be sentenced.
Corrections Association of New Zealand vice-president Paul Dennehy said, in his experience, management did everything they could to mitigate gang tensions but there was often a fluidity to such ties which made it difficult.
Last year, Corrections launched the "Safer Prisons Plan" to address safety issues but Mr Dennehy said it was light on specific strategies when it came to gangs.
"They talk sound bites in terms of they want to disrupt the gangs ... but there’s no sort of meat to any of that," he said.
Association secretary Mark Duncan said while the Christmas and New Year period had been relatively calm at OCF, there had been a serious incident on January 15.
An experienced and "well respected" Corrections officer was in the low-security unit when he was stabbed repeatedly by an inmate wielding a pen, he said.
Otago Corrections Facility general manager Dave Miller confirmed the incident and said the staff member, who did not require hospital treatment, was soon due to return to work.
The inmate responsible would be transferred to another jail.
"Prisons can be volatile environments, and many of the prisoners our staff work with can behave unpredictably and act without warning," he said.
