The Department of Corrections has carried out a review and rewrite of its Maori Therapeutic Programme, which has been running for six years.
The scheme teaches inmates how to alter the thoughts, attitudes and behaviour that led to their offending.
Corrections says the programme is now designed, developed and delivered entirely by Maori providers who supply the service in prisons.
Director for Maori Neil Campbell says the scheme is packaged from a Maori point of view as opposed to a strictly western model.
He says the programme gets prisoners to open up and examine their crimes.
Mr Campbell says it's about going back and incorporating the concepts of tika or right and pono or honesty, and talking about the offence and what led up to it.
The Maori Therapeutic Programme is open to men from any culture and nationality so long as they're resident in a Maori Focus Unit.
To be part of it, prisoners also must have completed the Tikanga Maori Programme, or be willing to do so and they must show motivation to attend the programme, which runs for a total of 100 hours.
