PRISONS HAVE become dangerously overcrowded and the rate of drug taking is “enormously high”, a leading member of the prison visiting committee network has said.
Stephen Langton, chairman of the visiting committee at Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, and the national prisons visiting committee group, said the closure in 2005 by the then minister for justice Michael McDowell of Spike Island Prison in Co Cork and the Curragh Place of Detention in Co Kildare was “a disgrace”.
It had led to current overcrowding levels, which the Inspector of Prisons Judge Michael Reilly has said is putting the lives of inmates and safety of staff at risk.
Mr Langton told The Irish Times: "[Spike Island] was closed by Michael McDowell to give a slap to the Irish Prison Service (IPS) or to the Prison Officers' Association. It wasn't done for monetary reasons. It was the same with the Curragh."
Both jails should have been kept open until the new Thornton Hall prison in north county Dublin was built, he said. The capacity in both closed jails could resolve current overcrowding “almost overnight”.
Accommodating prisoners on mattresses on the floor due to current levels of overcrowding was degrading and was a “worse crime” than many of the offences the inmates had committed.
He accused the Irish Prison Service of “massaging” prison occupancy rates. Numbers were managed “disingenuously” to produce an overall occupancy rate of 99 per cent.
This did not take into account that some jails such as Portlaoise Prison, where dissident republican factions were segregated, were only 50 per cent occupied while prisons like Mountjoy had at times a 135 per cent occupancy rate.
A large number of prisoners were on 23-hour lock-up in Mountjoy, either because they are gang members or have been threatened by gangs. Mr Langton believed these could easily be transferred to Portlaoise to ease overcrowding in Mountjoy without disturbing the existing segregation system in Portlaoise.
“If they are going to be locked up for 23 hours in Mountjoy why couldn’t they be locked up away from other inmates in Portlaoise?” Overcrowding was now so bad across the system that inmates were being released early to alleviate it. The issue would only be resolved by developing more non-custodial sentencing options.
Mr Langton also said the new system of annualised hours – where prison officer overtime was abolished in favour of a pay rise and longer working week – was “not working”. There were now too few prison officers available to man rehabilitative facilities such as libraries and workshops, which were closed as a result. Prisoners were left “hanging around”, increasing tensions.
Mr Langton said the IPS and the management in prisons had made very significant progress in trying to stem the flow of drugs. Drug dogs were now searching all visitors and airport-style visitor searching had also been introduced. However, drugs were still being thrown over perimeter walls in exercise yards.
“In the past I’ve walked to my car in the car park of Mountjoy and kicked blocks of cannabis out of the way. They’ve fallen short when being thrown over the walls.” Mr Langton believed a small number of prison officers in some jails were supplying drugs to inmates.
“The amount of [drugs] still available in prisons would indicate that somebody is bringing it in and not necessarily all of it by the inmates. It’s obvious when you are going around the prisons that you are talking to prisoners who are out of their heads.” However, on some visits to Mountjoy none of the inmates he had spoken to appeared drugged.
He believed drugs were at the root of the offending patterns of “at least three quarters” of Mountjoy’s inmates.
Some people who had been imprisoned without a drug habit were addicted by the time they had been released.
Tiny quantities of drugs had been concealed under the adhesive section of envelopes sent to inmates or under stamps. Small bags of drugs were also being passed mouth to mouth as inmates kissed relatives during visits, though visit monitoring had reduced this.
Mr Langton owns a construction company. He is from Dublin but lives in Co Westmeath. He was appointed to the Mountjoy visiting committee 12 years ago by the then minister for justice John O’Donoghue.