Dáil debates

Thursday, 1 February 2007

Prisons Bill 2006 [Seanad]: Second Stage

 

3:00 pm

Photo of Gerard MurphyGerard Murphy (Cork North West, Fine Gael)

There is no doubt that legislation on prisons is necessary if not long overdue. This debate affords us a chance to examine the antiquated physical structures of our prisons and, more importantly, it allows us to examine why our prison system is failing the inmate and, consequently, his or her community. Despite spending tens of millions of euro of taxpayers' money in incarcerating criminals, out system does little to prevent former inmates from re-offending. There is considerable evidence that prisoners add to the nation's lawlessness when released.

There is, moreover, great validity in the claim that our prisons are institutions where relatively petty criminals are educated in the art of more serious crime. A study undertaken by the institute of criminology at UCD showed that of 20,000 prisoners, more than a quarter find themselves back in prison within 12 months. Half of them return to prison within four years. This study outlines the stark reality that detention is producing rather than deterring future generations of criminals. It is an official indictment of the State's failure to run the Prison Service in a way that prevents the same people committing crimes in the future.

Prison must be a place of punishment for crimes committed but inmates must also be treated in a way that prevents them committing more serious crimes in the future. Taxpayers provide at least €90,000 per annum to detain each prisoner. This is a damn expensive punishment if all the system achieves is to train inmates to commit an even more serious offence when they are released. The strikingly high rate of re-offending exposes the devastating impact of poverty and social and economic disadvantage in contributing to a cycle of crime and violence. The vast majority of re-offenders are under 30 years of age, male, single and unemployed.

One would reasonably expect that these re-offending rates should have a major impact on anti-crime policies, particularly those relating to juvenile offenders. It is clear that young people exposed to prison life even for a short time can get locked into a cycle that destroys their own lives and increases the threat to communities on their release. This Bill will not solve this problem. Keeping young people out of prison in the first instance is the best long-term way of protecting the community while also providing a major cost benefit to the taxpayer. The Government's propaganda that extra prison places will help to reduce crime rates is nonsense. Twelve years ago, the then Fianna Fáil spokesman on justice promised zero tolerance of crime through penalties and more prison places. However, after ten years of this Government, crime rates are soaring despite what is being claimed. After 12 years talking about it and ten years in power, it has come to the conclusion that our prison system needs upgrading and new approaches, yet it has not learned the lesson that prison must always be the last resort, particularly for young offenders. Aside from humanitarian considerations and that most of the offenders come from a social and economic background which the Government, with its individualistic, selfish policies, has propagated, from a purely effective point of view, one lessens crime by limiting, in particular, the number of young people one sends to prison.

One lessens crime by putting in place training and education facilities in prisons for those who must be incarcerated and by spending on release at least a proportion of the €90,000 per annum it costs to keep a person in prison on the young person by providing the proper backup and assistance to help him or her reintegrate into society. We need high security, strict regime prisons for murderers, sex offenders and drug dealers but we do not need them to pass on their evil skills to young offenders who are jailed with them. As a consequence, these young people mirror their offences in the future.

The Government, when in Opposition 12 years ago, kept telling us about the serious crime problems. It is now ten years in office and crime rates continue to rise. We constantly listen to rhetoric from the Government but it still does not seem to have learned the lesson. It has failed to realise that more prison places is not the answer. Deputy Costello, the former Labour Party justice spokesman, produced an excellent paper on community policing. More recently, Deputy Jim O'Keeffe introduced a restorative justice paper. However, the Minister keeps on with the same old jargon while crime rates continue to rise.

Let us look at our prisons after ten years of this Government — ten years in which lack of funding could not be used as an excuse. The inspector of prisons, in his most recent report, said St. Patrick's Institution was a finishing school for bullies and rookie criminals, that Portlaoise — the top security prison — should be demolished and that Cork Prison is totally overcrowded. There are serious concerns that the State could be sued over conditions which exist in our prisons. This has been referred to already but despite the Minister's recent attempts to discredit the inspector of prisons, the fact is that visiting committees to all the prisons concur in almost all cases with the views of the inspector. Visiting committees have commented that overcrowding is a major problem at Castlerea and that Cloverhill Prison is lacking an education unit. If one goes through the list of prisons, one will see a list of criticisms both from the inspector and the visiting committees.

As stated by Senator Cummins in the Seanad, Fine Gael will not object to the provision of a modern and humane prison service. Fine Gael generally has no problem with the sections which deal with video-conferencing of certain court hearings; the placing of the office of the inspector of prisons on a statutory basis, which we welcome; matters to be included in the prison rules, including provision for mandatory drug testing; creating a basis in legislation for revised disciplinary procedures, including an appeals process; the exclusion of non-commercial work from the national minimum wage; or creating a statutory basis for charging prisoners for certain optional services.

Considering that free telephone calls cost the taxpayer more than €500,000 last year, it is time this Government, after ten years in office, stopped this waste of taxpayers' money. However, in the context of this Government, this sum of money seems small. One Minister referred to it as peanuts. I agree it is quite small compared to the tens of millions of euro the Government has wasted on other projects. However, that money could be better spent on prisoners after they have been released from prison to try to ensure they get the proper backup and are facilitated to get back into work to ensure the vicious cycle which has been created by neglect over many years is stopped and that they are helped in such a way that they will not be back in prison in a number of years.

We have serious reservations about the privatisation of the prisoner escort service. From reading the Bill, I am not sure I fully understand what the Minister intends. However, I genuinely believe it is the nature of private business to cut costs to improve profits. I understand the Minister will appoint a designated prison custody officer in a security company and it would be his or her responsibility to ensure standards are met within that organisation. I assume this officer or company will use its regular staff to do the actual work. There is no mention of what qualifications or experience these people will have. The use of private operators will necessarily compromise on quality and service. The shortfall in the quality of service and professionalism provided by a private firm compared to a State operator will result in decreasing security. Private staff may not have the required training and the State may leave itself open to accusations of human rights violations.

However, if the Minister insists that every person dealing with prisoners is a qualified designated prison custody officer and has proper mechanisms in place to oversee the process, then he is in danger of making the service more expensive for the taxpayer than the current system. As has been pointed out by others, because of the nature of some of the criminals, gardaí would also have to be involved, further increasing the cost to the taxpayer.

The Minister's assurance that he would not avail of powers under this section as long as the Prison Service provides a reasonable economic means of transporting prisoners can be taken with a grain of salt. He gave a similar assurance to Garda Síochána representative bodies during the course of the Garda Síochána Bill when he said he could not foresee any circumstance which would make it necessary to set up a Garda reserve force during his term as Minister. Fine Gael had no problem with him using that section to set up the force but we would have a problem if he used this section in the Prisons Bill to privatise the escort services.

We have some serious reservations about Part 4 which deals with the lack of planning arrangements for the construction and extension of prisons. The normal planning process will not apply and any questioning of a decision can only be done by seeking a judicial review. As such a review only examines a decision to see if procedures have been properly followed, there is no opportunity to go through what we regard as a real planning process. We appreciate the building and extension of prisons can be a difficult problem and see no reason the Minister should go beyond the recent planning Act for major infrastructural projects where the local authorities still have a consultative role and An Bord Pleanála continues to play a central role ensuring a proper planning process is conducted.

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