Ireland: social distress in prison

Elisabetta Zamparutti. The answer is on the sign placed at the entrance of Midlands prison, the first facility I visited in Ireland: “Provide safe and secure custody, dignity of care rehabilitation to prisoners for safer communities”. After visiting the prison, I may say that this positive vision, introduced in 2014 with the reform of the prison system, needs a more coherent action and further efforts not to be merely an aspiration.
There is no doubt that some effects of the reform are already noticeable: less people incarcerated, overall less violent incidents in prisons and a marked improvement in the provision of health care services. The CPT also considers laudable the fact that children are no longer held in prison and that solitary confinement is abolished¹. Nevertheless, further actions are required to avoid that de facto situations contradict the spirit and the text of the reform.

Overcrowding, a “toxic” problem and which hinders good prison management, persists in some prisons. Some material conditions raise critical issues, such as the fact that some multiple occupancy cells are still not equipped with fully partitioned toilet facilities.

The CPT’s delegation again observed that Irish prisons continue to hold severely mentally ill persons and that a rising number of homeless persons with severe mental health problems are ending up in prison. And as always, any reform should be confronted with staffing issues. In Ireland’s case, measures should be implemented so that prisons’ activities and services are not hampered by staff shortages.
In its visit, the CPT addresses another longstanding point : the establishment of an independent monitoring body. Although Ireland signed the OPCAT² in 2007, it has not ratified it yet. In their response to the CPT recommendations, the Irish authorities provide information on the plans to ratify the UN OPCAT before the end of 2021 and to establish a National Preventive Mechanism under the coordination of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. We hope the time has come for the CPT not to be the only body monitoring places of deprivation of liberty in Ireland anymore.

EZ. A focus of the visit was to examine the situation of prisoners placed under a restricted regime for protection or security reasons. Restricted regimes are of particular concern to the CPT, as they may lead to additional punishments with a greater risk of inhuman treatments. The main consideration in that field regards the Irish Prison Service policy on the abolition of solitary confinement and its genuine effort to ensure that all prisoners are offered at least two hours of out-of-cell time. Restricted places can hold challenging prisoners. It is a place where a combination of mental health issues can be found and coexist. It is a place of confusion, where protection could be mixed with discipline. For example, despite new procedures introduced in April 2019 to clarify the use of Close Supervision and Safety Observation Cells, their purpose is still unclear.

In all these regimes we met the same problem: a de facto situation of solitary confinement with inmates locked alone for more than 22 hours. A prisoner we met in Midlands prison said that he was hearing voices and had not been provided with his medication when placed in a restricted regime. For weeks, he was allowed out of his cell for only 20 minutes a day to shower and clean his cell. He was not offered any activities (gym, school, library). He had been declining the additional 20 minutes in the yard that he was offered three times a week and, therefore, spent 23 and a half hours a day locked in his cell.
Other people incarcerated at Cloverhill prison were placed in Safety Observation Cells while waiting for an admission at the Central Mental Hospital. In these SOC, one man was lying naked in his cell. The walls were smeared with faeces and there were puddles of urine on the floor. There were no blankets in the cell and his poncho, lying next to him, was soaked in urine. Prison officers explained that the door was only opened using the protection of a shield to pass him food. During his time in the cell, he had not been provided with a shower or let out of the cell. Other prisoners were found in similar situations that, for the CPT, might amount to inhuman and degrading treatment.

We also visited National Violence Reduction Units, recently opened to provide a more effective management of the small number of “high-risk violent and disruptive” prisoners. During the visit, the two prisoners with whom the delegation spoke both had their hands cuffed in front of their body before the inner grating in their cell was unlocked.

They were surprised to have these barriers removed and to have a face-to-face encounter with CPT delegation members. We discovered that even consultations with doctors happened through the barred hatch and that a blood sample had been taken through the bars while handcuffed.

A lot should be done to put the administration’s positive vision into practice. It should start by recording the out-of-cell time of persons placed under restricted regimes, implementing reviewing procedures for these regimes and reconciling legitimate security requirements with the CPT standards.

EZ. The CPT acknowledged that progress was made in the treatment and living conditions of prisoners since its last visit five years ago. But we also said that extra resources were required if, for example, Irish prisons’high support units were to really “provide a stepping stone towards admission to a psychiatric hospital or a step-down unit for managing persons returned to prison from a psychiatric facility”.¹ A programme of structured activities, including occupational therapy sessions, should be developed for prisoners held in these units. Further, steps should be taken to ensure that all prisoners kept in these units are held in clean cells, are provided with their own beds and get the support they need to maintain their hygiene. We also recommended that care and treatment plans were drawn up for mentally ill prisoners awaiting transfer to a mental healthcare facility. Another major concern is the rising number of homeless persons with severe mental health problems who are ending up in prison. Urgent steps, including legislative, should be taken to ensure that those the courts are willing to bail can be transferred rapidly to a psychiatric facility in the community to receive appropriate treatment.

In Ireland, as in many other States, prison is the place where social distress is concentrated: drugs, poverty, mental illnesses. Being aware of how prisoners live in these places of deprivation of liberty is crucial to solve all related problems in the wider community.

In a community composed of detainees and those who keep others detained the State is at risk, in the effort to take care of the Abels, to become itself Cain. Ireland is on the right way but a stronger action is needed to transform the aspiration into reality. Recommendations made by the CPT are polar stars to achieve this result.