"Greg Newbold provides a comprehensive history of the legislative and administrative changes in corrections and interweaves descriptions of the day-to-day realities of prison life as well as more occasional dramas such as the notorious prison escapes by Maori Mac, George Wilder and John Gillies, and the 1965 inmate riot that left Mt Eden almost uninhabitable for days." "The Problems of Prisons is the first full analysis of the history of the corrections system in New Zealand. It weighs the complex factors that have driven New Zealand's corrections philosophy and practice since 1840."--BOOK JACKET.