The Government is planning to double the capacity of Dóchas, the women's prison, in the controversial prison development at Thornton Hall. Dóchas's capacity is currently 85, though it often holds 90 or more.
The women's facility at Thornton Hall will hold 170. Plans are also in train for a women's facility in a new prison in Cork.
An Irish Prison Service spokesman described it as "future-proofing", that is, building enough prison places to cope with any future demand. This runs counter to international best practice, where the whole aim is to keep women out of custody unless they are serious and violent offenders who are a danger to the public. If our State were serious about following this trend, the last thing it would be doing is doubling the capacity.
Winston Churchill said: "First we shape our buildings, and then they shape us." Due to a lack of research and coherent policy, in Ireland first we shape our prisons, and then our prisons shape our penal policy. The prison service commissioned a review of expenditure last June. It found that neither the prison service nor the Department of Justice have set out long-term development plans for the prison system. Everything happens on an ad-hoc basis.
The design and capacity of Thornton Hall will determine penal policy for decades to come. The massive investment involved will virtually dictate that it be used to capacity. Current plans envisage 1,400 men, women and children there, despite the fact that it is in breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to detain children with adults. The location alone is a huge problem, especially for maintaining contacts with families. Think of a woman with a buggy and a couple of toddlers trying to make her way kilometres beyond Finglas on public transport. Whoever planned this is completely out of touch with the struggles faced by low-income women.
There is no evidence that there will be a doubling of the women who will need imprisonment. Rather, it will be a shameful failure if those places are ever needed. The British government commissioned Baroness Corston in 2006 to look at vulnerable women in prison. At times her report makes for searing reading. Most of the women she met in prison were mothers. Some were pregnant. Many of them suffered from poor physical or mental health, or substance abuse.
Significant numbers had been sexually, emotionally and physically abused. They had had chaotic childhoods or been in care. They self-harmed. They were poor. There were significant minority groups, including foreign nationals.
In her view, most of them should not be in prison at all. Given that women tend to be primary carers, prison has a disproportionate impact on their children. She believes that some women must be detained for public safety, but is dismayed to see so many women "frequently sentenced for short periods of time for very minor offences, causing chaos and disruption to their lives and families, without any realistic chance of addressing the cause of their criminality". The British government has accepted the thrust of her report and the official policy is now to find alternatives to custody where possible.
Her description of women in prison fits Ireland exactly. Only a tiny minority of women commit violent crime or murders. The vast majority of women are in prison for minor offences.
There is a great need to adequately address the reasons why women end up committing crimes, and for diversion services and alternative forms of custody and community service. Currently, there is little more than lip-service paid to rehabilitation or any serious attempt to prevent recidivism.
Of course, penal policy for men needs reform, too. Yet women's primary role in families leads to particular problems. There have already been babies born in Dóchas. Indeed, the Star carried a piece last November about a pregnant, homeless mother of two who has been remanded in custody until February. She herself was born in Mountjoy. Is this the kind of generational legacy we want? Dóchas, the women's centre in Mountjoy, was appropriately named. It is truly a sign of hope in a bleak landscape.
The regime there is recognised as progressive and humane. The prisoners are clustered in houses of approximately 12 women. The aim is to prevent institutionalisation, and therefore each house has its own cooking and laundry facilities.
Training and education are a major focus, with everything from hairdressing to literacy being provided. The city-centre location facilitates a gradual reinsertion into society, with women who are nearing the end of longer sentences being allowed to go out either to work or training. How can this be transferred to Thornton Hall?
Sadly, much of the good work in Dóchas rapidly erodes once the women are released, because the support services are so inadequate. Ironically, some women dread leaving Dóchas because it may mean a return to homelessness or a violent partner.
The good news is that the same spokesman for the Irish Prison Service who told me that they are doubling the capacity also said that they are committed to preserving the ethos of Dóchas in Thornton Hall. There is even talk of a modified Dóchas model for male prisoners with a low security rating. This evoked some scepticism from some prisoner rights advocates to whom I spoke, who pointed out that the ethos of Dóchas was entirely absent from the refurbishment of Limerick Prison, where women follow a standard prison regime. Other prisons built relatively recently, such as Cloverhill, show little in terms of innovation or progressive ideas.
The prison services are in a difficult situation. There is a sizeable lobby who would be quite happy to see a modern-day penal colony complete with chain-gangs. It condemns anything that smacks of bleeding-heart liberalism. On the other hand, the prison services are the subject of a great deal of criticism for not being progressive enough.
Change will only happen under strong leadership. We have a model in the UK. We need urgently to establish through research whom we are imprisoning, and why, with the aim of keeping as many women and men out of prison as possible. Minister Brian Lenihan has an opportunity to pioneer reform in the prison system so that, for once, policy might shape our prisons, and not the other way around.