The policy of doubling up cells in Irish prisons makes it impossible
for someone to remain drug free if they are sharing a cell with an
active drug user, Jesuit Fr Peter McVerry warned at an international
conference in Dublin on prison reform.In his address, What are we Doing to our People in Prison at the Scribani International Conference in Dublin last week, Fr McVerry, who established the Peter McVerry Trust in 1983to provide accommodation and support for young people who are homeless, reminded conference participants that the practice of doubling up contravenes European prison rules.
“I personally know about 40 young people, who never touched a drug prior to going to jail and came out addicted to heroin. They will almost certainly return to jail as a direct result of their prison experience,” the priest, who is much regarded for his willingness to question the structures that affect the lives of those on the margins and to make radical suggestions for change, said.
Highlighting the level of violence within Irish prisons, Fr McVerry claimed assaults on prisoners by other prisoners have become a regular feature of prison life.
According to the Irish Prison Service’s Annual Report 2010, there were, "1,014 incidents of violence among prisoners during the year.” This did not include, “very minor incidents.”
Fr McVerry said it was interesting that no information about the incidence of inter-prisoner violence is provided in the 2011 Annual Report. He regretted that figures were not available for assaults on prison officers and he warned that anecdotal evidence suggests they are increasing.
“One prison officer to whom I was talking casually when visiting one of our prisons recently remarked that he had been working now for 20 years, but for the first time in his career, he no longer felt safe coming in to work,” the Jesuit explained.
Serious assaults on prisoners by other prisoners often involved a practice called ‘striping’, which involved cutting the face with a blade to the extent that a wound might run down the whole side of the face and leave a permanent scar.
Fr McVerry also highlighted that there is a considerable level of bullying and intimidation of prisoners within Irish prisons, and vulnerable prisoners are targeted to bring back drugs when attending court or hospital.
“Gang feuds outside prison continue within prison. Scores are settled within prison,” he said.
The Scribani International Conference, Re-imagining Imprisonment in Europe: Common Challenges, Diverse Policies and Practice, was organised by the Irish Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice and took place in Trinity College Dublin from 5-7 September.
The rationale for the conference was to provide a forum for the analysis of some of the key features of imprisonment throughout Europe today, including the political, social and economic forces shaping prison policy and practice.
Organisers said the conference aimed to have key experts to address how prison systems in the future might evolve, in terms of prison policy, prison population size, and prison conditions, by bringing together academics and policymakers, as well as philosophers, practitioners, lawyers, theologian and researchers.
Another keynote address was given by Baroness Jean Corston, a member of the British House of Lords and former Labour MP for Bristol East from April 1992 to 2005. She was commissioned by the Home Office to conduct a review of women, with particular vulnerabilities in the Criminal Justice System of England and Wales.
The report, published in 2007, outlined the need for, “a distinct, radically different, visibly-led, strategic, proportionate, holistic, woman-centred, integrated approach.”
In her address, she highlighted the level of self-harm by women in British prisons.
In 2010, there were 26,893 incidents of self-harm in prisons. Women accounted for 47% of all incidents of self-harm, despite representing only 5% of the prison population.
“Much of this self-harm is too shocking to describe, yet women will assert that it is their way of blocking out memories of an intolerable past,” she said.
Baroness Corston also warned that often women in prison are there, “for too short a time for their offending behaviour to be dealt with, and on release, their biggest challenge is not employability, but accommodation. Time and again I heard the heart-breaking lament, ‘I just want somewhere for me and my kids’.”
In her report, Baroness Corston made forty-three recommendations of which forty-one were accepted.
“I had concluded that as women and men are obviously different, there ought to be a prison regime tailored to women’s needs. The dominant culture was that considered appropriate for men; extreme security, constant searching,” Baroness Corston said.
She added, “While I have never argued that no woman should ever be sent to prison, I concluded that prison was an entirely inappropriate place for turning round the lives of the vast majority of the women we locked up."
Her point tied in with an issue raised by Fr Peter McVerry in his address to the conference.
“Going to prison may sometimes not be a deterrent, making it less likely that a person might return to prison, but may make it more likely that a person will return there,” he said.
He warned that despite the best efforts of the Irish Prison Service to keep drugs out, drugs continue to be readily available within most Irish prisons and a drug culture exists, into which newly sentenced prisoners are inserted.
“Despite the often excellent education and training services available within some of our prisons, and an innovative and successful Community Return Programme, all of which have an inadequate number of places for the number of prisoners, most prisoners have little constructive activity during most of their days in prison, so the boredom, even meaninglessness, of prison life becomes a primary driver of drug misuse,” he warned.
He also highlighted that the profile of most people going to prison is an early school leaver, with few skills or qualification, no history of employment, poor literacy levels, often with an addiction to drink or drugs; a significant minority also has a history of homelessness or insecure housing, and some have a history of mental health issues.
The conference was organised by the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice, which was established in 1978 to promote social justice by fostering an understanding of public issues through social analysis, theological reflection and advocacy.
A registered charity and an agency of the Irish Jesuit Province, the JCFJ aims to influence government policy and practice and to raise awareness of difficult social issues.
At the heart of its work is the belief that every human being deserves dignity and respect.
The Scribani Network was founded in 2003 and is composed of fourteen European Jesuit centres from nine countries.
The Network aims to strengthen cooperation between the centres and encourages each to apply its knowledge and expertise on European integration in a social context.
More information on the conference here: http://www.jcfj.ie/scribani-conference.html