Monitoring

Me aro turuki

Where we monitor

Our power to monitor places of detention comes from the Crimes of Torture Act 1989. Under that law, the Commission is a National Preventative Mechanism, which means that it is our job to check whether places where children are detained are treating children with dignity and respect.

Our monitoring checks this against the United Nations Optional Protocol against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, known as OPCAT.

Ngā wāhi haumaru ka aro turukihia

Secure locations we monitor

We have a legal mandate to examine the quality of treatment for mokopuna who are detained. This includes:

  • Five Youth justice residences
  • Four Care and Protection residences
  • One special purpose facility run by Barnardos
  • Eleven youth justice community remand homes.
  • Five youth mental health facilities. Three of these are in-patient youth facilities and two are youth forensic mental health units.

We also assist the Office of the Ombudsman to monitor the three Mothers with Babies Units (MBUs) in Women’s prisons that are managed by Ara Poutama – Department of Corrections. We undertake this monitoring jointly with the Chief Ombudsman, who holds the OPCAT designation for the Women’s prisons.

If you have concerns about a child or would like to lodge a complaint, visit our “Help and Advice” section.

Ngā pūrongo aro turuki tūmatanui

Our public monitoring reports

Every time we monitor a place of detention, we create a report sharing our findings and what needs to be improved for mokopuna. As individual facility and monitoring theme reports are completed, they are published in our reports section (see the publications page).

Publications