Professor Nick Hardwick:

I have only recently started a life in academia. Prior to that I was Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons in England and Wales, responsible for inspecting youth custody. The inspectorate was the lead body in the UK's national preventative mechanism, established under the optional protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which Ireland is considering. Part of my academic work now is teaching and acting as a consultant to governments and bodies around the world on precisely these issues. I have expertise in this, without meaning to sound boastful. I am very confident about the process we used in this review. Looking across the world, some of the concerns we have run into here happen elsewhere. People think they know what is going on and they do not. I do a lecture about the process whereby poor practice becomes normalised. It becomes "the way we do things around here" and it takes someone from outside to say that it is not right. There is a distinction I talk about at home about the virtual prison, by which I mean the prison the governor thinks he or she is running, and which is very different from the prison that is actually happening on the wings. There is a distinction between the policy and what is actually happening. When someone reads that, it can be uncomfortable if he or she is responsible. However, those responsible will not address it unless they accept it.