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Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Act 2014

Detention and supervision of persons posing very high risk of imminent serious sexual or violent offending - Management of residents - Emergencies

74: Responses to security emergencies

You could also call this:

"What happens if there's a security emergency where you live and you need to be kept safe"

Illustration for Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Act 2014

If there is a security emergency in a place where you live, the prison manager can send corrections officers to help. They can use physical force to stop you or others from getting hurt or to stop property from getting damaged. The officers can only use as much force as they need to.

If you pose a big risk to yourself or others, the officers can take you to a prison. You can be kept in the prison, but if you are there for more than 24 hours, the chief executive must go to court to ask for a special order. The court can then decide if you should stay in the prison while they consider the application.

The court can make an interim prison detention order, which means you can be kept in the prison until the application is decided. If the court says no to the interim order, you must be taken back to your residence immediately. A security emergency is when someone's behaviour in a residence makes the manager think that people or property are in danger and need help.

If you are taken to a prison, some rules that apply to people in prison will also apply to you, as stated in the section 86. The interim prison detention order will stop being in effect when the application is finally decided or cancelled.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM4751200.

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Crime and justice > Police and safetyRights and equality > Privacy
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Part 1Detention and supervision of persons posing very high risk of imminent serious sexual or violent offending
Management of residents: Emergencies

74Responses to security emergencies

  1. If there is a security emergency in a residence, the manager of the prison in which the residence is physically located may, on request by the residence manager, direct 1 or more corrections officers to assist in restoring order at the residence.

  2. A corrections officer who is directed under subsection (1) may—

  3. apply any physical force that is reasonably necessary to prevent residents from—
    1. harming, or continuing to harm, themselves or others; or
      1. damaging, or continuing to damage, property; and
      2. detain and take to a prison any resident who appears to pose such an unacceptably high risk to the resident or to others, or to both, that the resident cannot be safely managed in the residence.

        1. An officer who uses physical force for any of the purposes referred to in subsection (2) may not use any more physical force than is reasonably necessary in the circumstances.

        2. A resident who is taken to a prison under subsection (2)(b) may be detained in the prison, but if the resident's detention exceeds a period of 24 hours, the chief executive must, within the next working day after the day on which that period of 24 hours expires, apply to the court, in respect of the resident, for a prison detention order and an order under subsection (5).

        3. If it appears to the court on the papers that the application for a prison detention order against the resident is properly made, the court may make an order (an interim prison detention order) ordering that, while that application is pending, the resident continue to be detained in the prison.

        4. Section 86 applies to a person who is taken to a prison under subsection (2)(b) or who is subject to an interim prison detention order as if the person were subject to a prison detention order.

        5. The interim prison detention order ceases to have effect when the application for the prison detention order is finally determined or is discontinued.

        6. If the court declines to grant an interim prison detention order, the resident must be immediately returned to a residence.

        7. In this section, security emergency means a state of affairs, brought about by the conduct of 1 or more persons in a residence, that leads the residence manager reasonably to believe that persons or property in the residence cannot be protected from harm or damage without assistance.

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