Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In his contribution the Minister of State quoted the Minister who stated: "The use of prison rules, done by way of statutory instrument, remains, in her view, the most effective and efficient way of adapting to changing circumstances." We are not doing very well by international standards in the way we operate prisons.

It is important that we are talking about prisons today, as we do not talk about them enough here. It is not a topical subject and it is not one that would win one any votes, but we need to address problems in that area more seriously.

We have been visiting prisons, in the North and South of Ireland, since 2011 and we are well aware of the fact that it is not a black and white issue. There are serious problems and serious challenges. What we can say though is that the outcomes are poor in Ireland and it is about time we admitted that we could do better.

A big problem is that there are many people in prison in Ireland who should not be there. It should not go unmentioned that a few years ago there were over 8,000 beds between Grangegorman, St. Ita's in Portrane and St. Loman's in Palmerstown. They are closed and they have not been replaced with much because we never got around to providing community health care. There are many people with mental health issues in our prisons who should not be there.

In our visits to prisons in Ireland, we have met good people, including prisoners, prison officers and management. Of the prison officers and management, there is an unusual commitment and interest in their job. They show an amazing amount of enthusiasm towards the challenges they face. We are not saying they get everything right but we would not question their interest and enthusiasm for their work.

The Jesuits probably know more about prisons than any of us. The Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice notes that in recent decades there has been a "severe hardening of attitude and policy in political and administrative fields in relation to penal matters". This "punitive turn" is highlighted by the 400% increase in the prison population since 1970. According to the European Prison Rules, "Imprisonment is by the deprivation of liberty a punishment in itself and... the regime... shall not aggravate the suffering inherent in imprisonment". Prison sentences are handed down as punishment, not for punishment.

The terms segregation, loss of privileges, on protection and restricted regimes are used to signify solitary confinement in Irish prisons, which entails 22 or 23-hour lock-up in which prisoners are denied contact with others, along with the opportunity to work or take part in prison programmes. The reasons given are for protection or punishment, usually for violence or drugs. The Irish Prison Reform Trust estimates that, on any given day, up to 80 prisoners are held in such conditions in Ireland. Data released under freedom of information in October 2016 showed that 24 prisoners in Ireland had been in solitary confinement for over 100 days, including nine who had spent over a year on 22-plus hours lock-up.

Terms in solitary confinement are imposed with little or no oversight. The decision rests entirely in the hands of the staff who, according to the Irish Prison Reform Trust, do not necessarily always have the qualifications to deal with the challenges facing them, no matter how hard they try. The reluctance of the Government to define solitary confinement and our failure to ratify the Optional Protocol of the Convention against Torture, which would allow for routine inspections of places of detention, create a completely non-transparent environment undermining the position of both staff and inmates.

The European Committee on the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, CPT, of which Ireland is a member, recommends 14 days as the maximum length anyone should have to spend in solitary confinement, as after this period the damage to the prisoner can be irreversible. Ireland's practice of handing down extended terms in solitary confinement has been criticised by both the CPT and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.

The Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice cites a number of studies since the 1990s which indicate that Ireland has a high incidence of mental health issues among prisoners, relative to the general population. On the whole, Ireland struggles to deal with high levels of severe mental health problems within the general population, not to talk about prisons. In Wexford, for example, there are zero 24-hour acute mental health services. It takes up to 72 hours to be seen by a suicide crisis assessment nurse if one presents at accident and emergency. If one gets to see such a nurse, one could be referred to Waterford where one again must wait in accident and emergency and if one is lucky, one might get a place in one of their acute beds, but they are usually full. Not only do we not look after mental health issues in prisons, we do not do so in the general population.

If we look at other countries, such as Norway - we should be looking at international best practice - the focus of its prison system is on restorative justice and rehabilitation. Its recidivism rate is 20%, one of the lowest in the world. A report by the Irish Prison Service and the CSO shows that Ireland's recidivism rate within three years is 62%. Norway's prisons are small, spread all over the country to keep prisoners close to their families and communities, and are designed to resemble life on the outside as much as possible. Ireland's tendency towards institutionalisation, isolation and punishment just perpetuates the cycle of crime. In the words of the director of Norway's Halden Prison, "every inmate in Norwegian prison is going to back to society. Do you want people who are angry or people who are rehabilitated?"

In 2006, Dr. Stuart Grassian, a board certified psychiatrist who was on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School for over 25 years, published a study of the effects of solitary confinement in which he evaluated the psychiatric effects of solitary confinement in well over 200 prisoners in various state and federal penitentiaries. He came to the same conclusions that other doctors had reached more than 150 years previously, that keeping a person in prolonged periods in what amounts to social isolation is disastrous for his or her well-being. The penitentiary system began in the United States, first in Philadelphia, in the early 19th century. This system involved almost an exclusive reliance on solitary confinement as a means of incarceration and also became the predominant mode of incarceration in several European prison systems at the time. The results were catastrophic to such a degree that it was ultimately abandoned, and yet we are still using the practice here 150 years later.

In his study, Grassian lists the symptoms that he commonly found among those subjected to solitary confinement. To name just two of them, he states that well over half the inmates interviewed described severe panic attacks while in solitary confinement and almost half the prisoners reported episodes of loss of impulse control with random violence. The average conditions of the prisoners Grassian was dealing with were identical to 20% of those in what the Irish Prison Service likes to call "restricted regime". Grassian's average prisoner resided in "a cell of roughly fifty to eighty square feet; approximately twenty-two and one-half hours per day locked in the cell; about one hour per day of yard exercise". This will not solve problems.

Due to the lack of a clear definition of solitary confinement here in Ireland, the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, is free to answer concerns about the practice with the following:

I am advised by the Irish Prison Service that there is no provision for solitary confinement in the Irish Prison Service. However,... on occasion, it is necessary for vulnerable prisoners and others to be separated from the general prison population.

This is an absurd deflection tactic and, by calling it something else, does not erase the fact that the prison service routinely engages in human rights abuses. We need a system that is able to accommodate those who need help building up their coping skills, not one that locks them up alone for weeks at a time in a box. Our recidivism rate is among the highest in the world, and it is no surprise. We are heaping punishment upon punishment, with sometimes permanent damage being inflicted.

The sooner we realise and accept that what we do through our prison system is not really working, not even with the best efforts of all the staff concerned, the better. We have to change our whole approach. Let us at least start talking about it. Just because there are no votes in it does not mean we should not be addressing some serious issues in this area. It affects all society because these people come back out into the system. When they misbehave and remain violent, there is a reason for it. We have not dealt with it properly and we have to accept responsibility for that. Let us wake up and look at the realities.

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