Fr. Peter McVerry:

With regard to the ideal size for a prison, the smaller the better. I suggest a size to cater for 150 prisoners, with a maximum of 200. We are building larger prisons currently. Wheatfield is approaching a prison population of 1,000. Currently it has 700, but one unit is to be doubled up and that will bring the population there to almost 900. The Midlands Prison, if it has not already reached it, is approaching a population of 1,000. The population of Mountjoy will be back up to 700 when it is refurbished. Therefore, we are moving in the direction of bigger prisons all the time.

What happens within the prisons is important. The sub-committee has visited Wheatfield, which was built on the basis of the best physical model available in Europe at the time.

The unit the committee visited was meant to be self-contained. Prisoners were supposed to be out of their cells from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. This is what happens in the same physical units in other countries. They were meant to cook their meals communally in the unit. They had access to the outside through a door in the unit and a sensor would indicate if they moved beyond the area where they were supposed to be recreating. They had freedom all day long within the confines of the unit. We built it according to the best model that was available in Europe but we imposed the Mountjoy regime onto it, which destroyed it.

The United Kingdom has a 50% remission rate and it is not especially enlightened in terms of prison policy. I do not understand why we cannot go that far although politically it might be a problem. There would be a great outcry but I would favour a move towards it.

The problem with integrated sentence management is that in order to be effective it would require a vast increase in resources. The idea of integrated sentence management is that the needs of every prisoner going in would be assessed by a multidisciplinary team within the first couple of weeks. Then a plan would be drawn up with the prisoner to address those needs. One would need a vast increase in training, education and other resources to effectively introduce integrated sentence management on a wide scale. The problem at the moment is that many prisoners are keen to do something constructive but they cannot because the facilitates are not in place or they do not have access to them. The idea of an enhanced regime whereby someone will get extra benefits if they participate in rehabilitation programmes is blindness to my mind because the programmes in which people wish to participate simply are not there.

There should be better co-ordination for people leaving prison. I received a telephone call this morning from a man who had been released last night at 5 p.m. but he had nowhere to go. He slept on the street last night. He wanted to know whether he could meet me this morning to sort something out. He has no money, nowhere to go and he cannot get welfare. Unstructured, early temporary release is a total disaster. People are being told to pack their gear and that they will be out in two hours. This person said to me that he should have insisted he would not go because he came out to nothing. It simply needs co-ordination. There is a good service. Two community welfare officers go into prisons to deal with homeless people. They arrange accommodation and a welfare cheque at the gate for when they are released but this requires planned release. Unstructured temporary release falls flat on its face for the majority of prisoners. They come out of prison into homelessness with no money and no access to money perhaps for several weeks because the welfare system takes that long to process a claim. How can we be surprised that the recidivism rate is so high?