Director’s Blog
Reform not possible as long as prison is at centre of Irish penal policy - an Intern's Perspective
August 26th, 2010
Recent announcements by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern indicate that our prison system is set to expand, as he has given a renewed go ahead for Thornton Hall. While the building will be on a smaller scale in its first phase, it confirms the government’s commitment to prison building as a solution to the ongoing crises within our prison system.
There’s no question that Mountjoy needs to be replaced. This institution first opened its doors in 1850, and over the years it has gained a reputation as being a shockingly Dickensian and dehumanising place. Only recently John Lonergan, the former governor, described it as appalling and as being no more than a warehouse. Consequently, people may have expected that the announcement to forge ahead with Thornton Hall would be warmly welcomed; however this has not been the case. Penal reform campaigners, including the IPRT, have opposed Thornton Hall on a number of grounds.
Firstly, the proposed location is 15km from Dublin city centre. The remote location presents a number of difficulties. Many of the rehabilitation and reintegration services which are provided by voluntary organisations may find it difficult to provide these essential services in such an isolated location. Furthermore, the lack of public transport to the area will seriously inhibit many family members' ability to visit. Secondly, the fact that cells are already planned to be doubled up will create considerable obstacles to rehabilitation and effective prison management. The doubling up of cells illustrates that the government’s commitments to end overcrowding and improve living conditions are secondary to their desire to increase prison capacity. Thirdly, the intended size of Thornton Hall poses a long list of barriers which will encumber rehabilitation. Bigger or super prisons do not compare favourably with smaller custodial centres – larger prisons have higher rates of prisoner suicide, inter-prisoner violence as well as higher recidivism rates. These are facts that simply cannot be brushed aside.
Nevertheless, since 2005, Thornton Hall has been heralded as a panacea to the problems in our penal institutions. Undoubtedly it will be a far superior building – simply having in-cell sanitation will see it out-strip the current inhumane conditions in Mountjoy. The fact that slopping-out has been allowed to continue for so long, despite a long list of reports and international inspections which have severely criticised the practice, is a damning indictment of Irish prison policy. However, the problems in our prison system go far beyond the need for refurbishment and modernisation, including high rates of re-offending, epidemic levels of substance abuse and chronic over-crowding. There’s no doubt that these issues need to be addressed as a matter of urgency, but there is an overwhelming body of evidence that highlights that these difficulties simply cannot be solved by expanding our prison estate.
Moreover, building a prison is not cheap, and given the current economic climate it would seem logical that policy-makers would want to look for alternative solutions that are more financially viable. For instance, community sentences are far cheaper and are considerably more successful at reducing recidivism. In light of this evidence and given the turbulent financial situation over the last 3 years, it is remarkable that prison building and expansion has so far been the only show in town.
The government’s perseverance with Thornton Hall points to a far bigger problem in the underlying attitudes towards penal policy in general. It seems that for policy-makers, prison expansion has become a ubiquitous solution to the problems in our prison system and the unwavering commitment to expansionism exposes that prison is entrenched at the centre of Irish penal policy.
The Irish prison system can be reformed, but to have any long lasting and meaningful results it must be led by evidence-based policy. The government must endeavour to make prison a sanction of last resort, and reducing crime through rehabilitation and reintegration must be the central aspiration of our penal system. Unfortunately such reform just doesn’t seem possible as long as prison building is the default initiative of Irish penal policy.
*This week's blog was prepared by Louise Brangan, our current intern
Challenging Cases
July 27th, 2010
It has been an exciting two weeks with two judgments coming out of Irish Courts relating, in different ways, to the question of prison conditions.
The case of Mulligan v Governor of Portlaoise Prison and Anor grabbed a lot of headlines as it concerned the practice of slopping-out in Irish prisons and its impact on the health and wellbeing of Mr Mulligan. The Court found that the conditions in which Mr Mulligan was held did not cross the threshold necessary to conclude that his treatment was inhumane and degrading. The judge did state, however, that the situation in Portlaoise compared favourably to that of prisoners in other prisons, such as Mountjoy and Cork, where the practice of slopping-out in overcrowded conditions could be assessed in a different way.
And last Friday, the Supreme Court issued a judgment in the case of MJELR v Rettinger which concerned the sending of Mr Rettinger to Poland to serve the remainder of his prison sentence. Mr Rettinger opposed his transfer under the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) saying that conditions in Polish prisons are such that if returned he may be subjected to treatment which is inhumane and degrading. As part of the argument, Mr Rettinger’s legal team pointed out that systemic overcrowding in Polish facilities was found to breach Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of Orchowski v Polandlate last year.
The Supreme Court was very clear that when deciding on transfer under the EAW, the Courts here need to consider whether prison conditions in Poland breach human rights standards. The Court stated that Mr Rettinger’s statement has not been challenged by the Polish authorities or the Irish Department of Justice, and that Polish authorities did not provide any information to contradict his evidence. This, in light of the consequences for Mr Rettinger should he be returned to Poland, is not sufficient to make an informed decision as to whether he should or should not be transferred there. It directed the High Court to consider whether there is a “real risk” of Mr Rettinger being subjected to treatment that would breach his rights under the ECHR, and stated that cases such as Orchowski are of clear relevance here. Most importantly, the test that is to be applied here is one developed under the ECHR, thus bringing the standards developed by the European Court of Human Rights to the very centre of judgments by the courts in Ireland.
It is true that for the individual prisoners involved, the outcomes of these two cases may not necessarily be what they hoped for: Mr Mulligan’s argument that his treatment had negative impact on his health has not been upheld; Mr Rettinger faces another hearing in the High Court and the outcome of that hearing may still be an order to surrender him to the Polish authorities. However, from the point of view of future legal challenges, both cases constitute an important step in the development of the protection of prisoners’ rights in Ireland. Mr Justice Mac Menamin’s statement regarding the difference in conditions in the various prisons, we would argue, opens the possibility of future successful legal challenges of slopping-out in Irish prisons, and should now force the State to consider all possible ways of eliminating this practice as soon as possible. It is also difficult to imagine that after the Rettinger case, a different test would be applied to prison conditions here should any prisoner raise the impact of overcrowding on their fundamental human rights. Let’s hope that successful cases are not far off
Agnieszka Martynowicz is IPRT's Research & Policy Officer.
Tories lead the way on Penal Reform - Who'd have thunk it?
July 13th, 2010
For a few weeks now media coverage in Britain has been focussing heavily on Ken Clarke's radical new approach to Justice and Crime. His proposals to reduce imprisonment and promote community sanctions have frightened the Daily Mail and there have been rumours that the Prime Minister was nervous about the reactionary backlash.
Now it seems that David Cameron is fully behind the Justice Secretary, and there's a real chance of turning around the Titanic that the UK's prison system has become. In a report in today’s Belfast Telegraph, Cameron is quoted as recognising the wastefulness of short sentences, the need for diversion into community punishments and, most dramatically, is willing to take on the problem of long sentences.
Sometimes you can get to the right policy result by a number of different routes. Cameron is open in saying "we're broke so we must be reformers" - which should resonate with Ireland’s current situation and is a welcome shift from "we have money so we'll build more prisons regardless of the consequences".
Wouldn't it be great to think that Irish penal policy could reach that conclusion without having to go through the disastrous expansion Britain had under Labour? It might just happen...
Reintegration is not possible under these conditions - an Intern's Perspective
June 17th, 2010
The story this week, of a mentally ill woman being forcibly removed from the Dóchas Centre, has brutally illustrated the truth behind the words of former governor Kathleen McMahon.
The case concerns a woman removed from prison despite desperate protestations, after having served just four weeks of a six-month sentence. The woman, who has a history of self-harm and previous stays in psychiatric facilities, was also homeless and addicted to drugs. These compelling factors did not prevent the Irish Prison Service from ordering her removal, against the advice of prison staff, resulting in a physically arduous eviction, leaving the woman, as the Irish Times reports, ‘on the pavement outside’. Removed against her will, and with no time for forward planning, the situation is in marked contrast to the women-centric approach used in McMahon’s time, when release dates could be delayed in order to ensure women had somewhere to go when they were released.
Reintegration is hopeless if this is how prisoners are turned out. How often does this happen but remain under the radar? Had it not been for this particular woman’s protestations, which marked the case as bound for the public domain, this incident would have gone without notice.
The great hopes of the Dóchas Centre are being undermined by overcrowding and a failure to treat each individual who enters as someone worthy of invested time and planning.
The incident provokes questions about the ability of the Dóchas Centre to fulfil its original intentions under such conditions, prompting inquiries by the Dóchas Centre visiting committee and an internal inquiry by the Irish Prison Service. Inspector of Prisons, Judge Michael Reilly, may also look into the matter. It has also ignited a new policy that forbids the early release of mentally ill prisoners.
Former governor Kathleen McMahon had warned that control would continue to be centralised and taken out of the hands of those on the ground. The Dóchas Centre was designed with the intention that real progress could be made while inside. It is unlikely whether this is currently possible, it is also in question whether this remains a priority.
* This week's blog entry was prepared by Lynsey Black, one of our two current interns.
Launch of IPRT’s Reintegration Report – an Intern’s Perspective
May 31st, 2010
IPRT launched “It’s like stepping on a landmine…” – Reintegration of Prisoners in Ireland at the MACRO Community Centre in the Markets Area of Dublin North Inner City. The report highlights the strenuous efforts of so many community projects and non-statutory agencies, providing services and support to released prisoners; and the setting of MACRO seemed to reflect the admiration in the report for community projects and the work they do.
One of the speakers, Pat Conway, Director of Services for Adults at NIACRO, held up the report and claimed that he could slap the word ‘Northern’ in the title and apply it easily to the situation in Northern Ireland. This may seem obvious I suppose, but it surprised me and left me with that sinking feeling that this was most likely the case in many countries - Governments can afford to fail at supporting prisoners because the horrible truth is that few people care. If society as a whole doesn’t really give a damn about the problem, a government can afford to ignore it as they see fit.
This apathy is exactly why it was so important to hear from Joseph, a former prisoner and current student, who spoke at the launch and provided a personal reflection of leaving prison. Joseph’s description of the fear that he experienced as the sentence draws to its close sounded horrific. From the report itself, I learned that wanting to avail of the information available (woeful though it is) was considered a weakness by inmates and prison officers. So how do you cope if you have no information about how to handle release, and you feel like you can’t ask, and your dread at the prospect is rising?
There were a lot of these moments, moments in which I realised I had never previously considered the reality for a released prisoner. Lisa Cuthbert from PACE spoke about certain released prisoners, perhaps older men from rural communities, who would never return to their homes, and would live the rest of their lives in housing projects run for former prisoners. IPRT’s Agnieszka described a haphazard and chaotic administration, a system which uses temporary release as a valve to relieve pressure, a system which cannot guarantee any support on release, and a system that may not even provide the most basic information.
The provision of information in prison, the ability of prisoners to access that information which they require to equip themselves for release, seems like a basic aspiration. Realising that this information was not routinely available is shocking. Something so simple and effective, and yet so lacking, is inexcusable. This may have been the overwhelming impression left by the event; small, well-aimed changes, could deliver disproportionately beneficial results. I think beginning with the provision of information would be a good place to start.
* This week’s blog entry was prepared by Lynsey Black, one of our two current interns, who gave her perspective on encountering direct prisoner experiences of release at IPRT’s recent report launch.
The real issue with gangs in prison
May 11th, 2010
Reports in today’s Evening Herald suggest that the presence of senior so-called ‘gangland’ figures is having a corrosive effect on the control of drugs in Irish prisons.
This is on the back of statements last week from Jim Mitchell of the Irish Prison Officers Association that the growing influence of gangs within prisons is contributing to increased violence in the prisons.
There are two ways of looking at this – firstly that prisons are suffering the symptoms of a social problem in the community. This is essentially the line of the Minister and the IPS and there is some truth in it.
However there is also another perspective – that our prisons and how we manage them are in fact a significant factor in the growth of these gangs. Given the dysfunctional nature of overcrowded prisons, where effective security is not possible, the influence of power of a small number of senior gang figures is growing. This contributes to bullying and pressure on younger prisoners to align themselves within the prison. The control of drugs and other contraband is a clear pressure point within the system and Paul O’Mahony has highlighted on numerous occasions the central role of prisons like Mountjoy in the development of Ireland’s drug problem. (See the DPAG paper from 2008, Key Issues for Drugs Policy in Irish Prisons)
There is a real danger in assuming that once serious organised crime figures are imprisoned, that the threat they pose is exhausted. If prisons don’t segregate and manage these prisoners effectively – and this is increasingly difficult in our chronically overcrowded institutions – they can cause very significant further harm while in prison. Prison violence is dramatically increasing, protection is becoming a norm and criminal enterprises are being managed from behind bars.
Gang culture is a key factor in all of these problems – and the only policy response at this stage is to house even more prisoners together in larger institutions. What results can we expect?
Read more:
- Irish Independent, Prisons fight losing battle with vicious gang culture
- Irish Independent, Jailers battle to break the gangs
An eggs-treme sort of wake-up call
April 30th, 2010
The Mayo News reported this week on how a 17-year old was given “a wake-up call he needed” by being sent to St Patrick’s Institution for 2 nights. The so-called “Halloween egg thief” (an evil moniker indeed) received the sentence after failing to appear in court – it’s worth noting that his legal representatives had mixed up the dates, not the young person himself. During the appeal hearing, as related by the Mayo News, he was asked by the Judge whether he had stopped drinking – the boy replied ‘not really’, to which the Judge then suggested that a longer spell in St Pat’s might sort him out.
It could be that the Judge’s words were intended to simply provoke better behaviour in the young person, but this in turn offers us an alarming snapshot of the disconnect between law, policy and a worrying and persistent judicial preference for custody as a punishment.
Section 96 of the Children Act 2001 states clearly that the detention of children should only be a measure of last resort. It also states that children should be allowed stay in their own homes with their families to the greatest possible extent and should be retained in mainstream education. This is further supported by the strategy of Irish Youth Justice Service, which aims to focus resources on diverting young people away from – and not deeper into – the criminal justice system. None of which seems to have been addressed by the judge in this case.
This situation seems to be crying out for a better solution, such as restorative justice options, whereby the young offender would work to compensate the business and community for the €300 worth of damage and 3,000 eggs stolen. This would surely be of more lasting benefit to everyone than the huge waste of public resources involved in transporting the boy up to Dublin (Garda time); processing him at St Pat’s (including assessments, etc.); and accommodating him for two nights in a prison system that is already bursting at the seams. Any reference to a period of imprisonment as a ‘wake-up call’ runs against all available knowledge of the negative, damaging impact of even a short time in a prison.
This case is one small example of continuing over-use and misuse of imprisonment for young people - the most glaring feature of which is the 1/3 of the juvenile detention population who are on remand. Using St Pat’s as a ‘wake-up call’ is completely contrary to law and practice, and it is deeply worrying that judges could think like this.
Desperate times, desperate measures?
April 19th, 2010
IPRT has been contacted by media for comment this week on
recent cases where people sentenced to significant periods of imprisonment (10
months in one case, and 12 months in another) have been released on Temporary
Release after a matter of days.
As prison ‘sceptics’, we might be expected to be happy to see prisoners released early – but in fact, there is a genuine problem of public confidence and trust if court sentences are being undermined in this way.
The context to the use of TR at present is, of course, the chronic overcrowding situation in Irish prisons. Prison authorities, quite understandably, are using every measure available to them to manage unsustainable numbers in several prisons. As a practical step they are trying to release the pressure valve by letting out prisoners who they assess as presenting a low risk. We don’t have fixed safe custody limits (and we certainly should) but prison management recognises that the risk of releasing someone too early is sometimes preferable to the possible consequences of chronic overcrowding.
"...prison management recognises that the risk of releasing someone too early is sometimes preferable to the possible consequences of chronic overcrowding."
It is a humane response to a crisis not of their making, but it is of necessity ad hoc in nature and creates other problems – most importantly, in damaging credibility in the system for offenders and the public. We are currently approaching TR levels of over 16% - that means that as well as the 4,100 prisoners inside, there are a further 750 on the outside. So our overcrowding situation is even worse than it appears.
The question is what are we going to do about it? The bottom line is that in focussing on prisons, prisoner release and numbers of prison places, we are going nowhere. The real story here is about the changes in sentencing patterns which is seeing more people being sent to prison, and for longer periods of time.
IPRT has no problem in saying that court sentences should be implemented, but with a couple of caveats: they should be used as a last resort, they should be planned, and they should be fair. Given that these are pretty big caveats at the present time, we should not be surprised if prison management has to take desperate measures to deal with the excesses of our courts and policy-makers.
When society fails to act
April 8th, 2010
Twenty years ago this week, the worst prison unrest in recent British history occurred when over 1,000 prisoners took control of Strangeways Prison in Manchester, in protest at chronic overcrowding and cell conditions at the prison. In a 25-day “riot”, one prisoner and one prison officer lost their lives and protests and unrest broke out at several other prisons across England, Wales and Scotland.
Lord Woolf was appointed to carry out an inquiry and found that overcrowding (Strangeways held over 1,600 prisoners at the time of the riot for a capacity of 1000) and inhumane cell conditions and slopping out had contributed to the unrest. Ultimately, the rebuilding of the prison cost £55m, but it marked the beginning of an investment process that overhauled prison conditions and ended slopping out in England in 1996.
It’s worth looking back at just five of the recommendations of the Woolf report, recommendations that have generally been implemented in the UK, and using these recommendations to measure Irish prisons twenty years later:
- A new Prison Rule that no establishment should hold more prisoners that is provided for in its certified normal level of accommodation, with provisions for Parliament to be informed if exceptionally there is to be a material departure from that rule.
The Inspector of Prisons was so concerned at overcrowding in Mountjoy in Feb 2009 that he wrote directly to the Minister; the numbers held in Mountjoy have only risen in the time since.
Moreover, the Inspector of Prisons, the Visiting Committees, and other monitoring agencies report directly to the Minister of Justice and not to the Oireachtas, which is problematic.
- Provision of access to sanitation for all inmates by 1996 (achieved in England, though not in Scotland).
One third of prisoners in Ireland still have no access to in-cell sanitation.
- Division of prison establishments into small and more manageable and secure units.
Government is still insisting that the proposed super-prison at Thornton Hall will go ahead, despite strong economic and social arguments against penal expansionism.
- A national system of Accredited Standards, with which, in time, each prison establishment would be required to comply.
Although the Inspector of Prisons published standards for inspection in 2009, they have no statutory basis.
- Improved standards of justice within prisons involving the giving of reasons to a prisoner for any decision which materially and adversely affects him; a grievance procedure and disciplinary proceedings which ensure that the Governor deals with most matters under his present powers; relieving Boards of Visitors of their adjudicatory role; and providing for final access to an independent Complaints Adjudicator.
There is no independent complaints mechanism for people held in prisons in Ireland.
In the intervening years, much progress has been gained in Britain through the implementation of these recommendations, although the dramatic increase in prison population in more recent years has undermined some of this progress. It was a disgrace for Britain that it took the tragic events at Strangeways to bring about this progress.
Reading through the recommendations from an Irish perspective, it is an even greater disgrace that none of these issues have been addressed in our prison system, despite the worrying increase in prison violence in recent years. There are pressing moral and legal arguments for addressing the chronic human rights problems of overcrowding, cell conditions and slopping out, and basic accountability of the prison system. If this case is being ignored, Strangeways and the Woolf report provide a warning sign of what can happen when society fails to act.
Testing the strength of our principles
March 22nd, 2010
Hard cases make bad law – but they also can force us to reassess our values. Perhaps the hardest case of the past 20 years, in terms of its profound social impact, was that of the trial and conviction of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables for the killing of toddler James Bulger. The case still horrifies society in Britain and internationally, and the recent frenzy around the re-committal of the 27-year old Venables to prison continues to pose troubling questions about the capacity of children and how society can respond to the unthinkable crime.
Kathy Sheridan’s thoughtful and provocative article in The Irish Times (13 March) brings a welcome reflective perspective to the issue. By moving beyond the hysteria or the tabloid and ‘mob’ dynamic of the case, she raises serious questions about the role of the victim in the criminal process.
IPRT, along with our colleagues in the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and in a range of victim representative bodies, believes that there is great capacity for an enhanced role of victims in the criminal trials and in pre-trial and post-trial contexts. However, the recent political focus in the UK on public statements by Denise Fergus (James Bulger's mother) in the Venables controversy points to the dangers of allowing a victim’s perspective dominate punishment.
If we believe in a dispassionate, fair and objective system of justice, then we are deliberately distinguishing criminal justice from vengeance. In such a system, the victim of a particularly heinous crime is precisely the person who should not determine the punishment.
The difficulties presented by victim-centred system of punishment were the subject of fictitious depiction in the tv series ‘The West Wing’, where Martin Sheen's President is challenged on his opposition to death penalty. When asked about how he would feel about if his child was killed, Sheen concedes that in such tragic circumstances, he would want the greatest punishment possible. But he goes on to state that, it is that personal urge for punishment which is precisely why a victim should not get to make the decision about punishment.
The trial process is explicitly insulated from political or outside interference - but the area of recalling prisoners on licence or determining release dates for convicted persons is much more vulnerable to such influence, as it lies in the hands of government ministers. Here, the potential for decisions being made on the basis of the prevailing public opinion is much greater than in the Court of Law.
The real challenge of a hard case like that of Thompson and Venables is that it tests whether our principles of respecting children's rights are strong enough to encompass the worst case scenario in either of those processes. Echoing much of Kathy Sheridan's analysis, English journalist David Aaronovitch in the London Times answers that for Britain, unfortunately, the answer seems to be no.
As we embark on a national debate about children’s rights in this jurisdiction, how does our commitment to treat children as children sit with our capacity to condemn children as “evil” or beyond redemption? And how far should we go and how far are we willing to go to understand why a small number of children commit serious crimes? Aaronovitch and Sheridan point to two different approaches we can take when faced with such a case.