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A proposal to house prison inmates in shipping containers has come under fire as inhumane.
The proposal is part of a range of options suggested by the Corrections Department, as the government looks to find ways to cope with the rising prison population.
Kim Workman, from the group Rethinking Crime and Punishment says the idea of putting prisoners in containers was inhumane.
"I think it's a major breach of human rights and a contravention of the United Nations minimum rules for accommodating prisoners."
Prisoners could be asked to work but making their own cells was similar to asking a person on death row to build their gallows, he says.
Workman says the fact that there are no guidelines or a basic framework around basic human right standards in prisons is concerning.
"Without that standard, the Minister is at liberty to decide what is humane and what isn't and that's not satisfactory," he says.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister John Key says the government will be assessing all the options as to how best house inmates.
He says prisons will only be built out of shipping containers if they are safe and humane.
"I wouldn't say we are going to do this. It's just that I don't know at this point. We're assessing all of the options available to us."
Key says the prefabricated shipping containers were used overseas but would not be introduced here if they were not humane, sensible or secure.
Using shipping containers, the cost is an estimated $380,000 per bed.
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