A EUROPEAN committee against torture has strongly criticised “degrading, inhumane and unsafe” conditions in the Republic’s prisons and has questioned plans for a new super-prison to address chronic overcrowding.
The group’s report has also outlined allegations of serious assaults by prison officers on inmates, including kicks to the face, some of which allegedly occurred while inmates were handcuffed.
Stabbings and attacks with implements were “an almost daily occurrence in Mountjoy”. The jail was unsafe for inmates and staff and was characterised by violence, gangs and drugs.
The report outlines a haphazard system of healthcare, where inmates are continuously prescribed drugs, including heroin withdrawal medication methadone, sometimes in the absence of any apparent meaningful medical supervision. One prisoner who failed 21 drug tests, 15 of them for heroin and cannabis, had his methadone continued; his illegal drug taking apparently not considered a factor for altering or discontinuing his medication.
“For a number of prisoners in receipt of a methadone detoxification prescription it could be stated that this was simply ‘free petrol’, ” the report notes.
The committee was also concerned at the extent to which mood altering, including anti-depressant, medication was given to inmates at the Midlands Prison, with no clear rationale for this.
The report was compiled by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The committee, part of the Council of Europe, visited the Republic for 12 days last January and February. Its remit is to visit jails, police stations and psychiatric hospitals and raise any issues of concern. Its last visit here was in 2006.
Its new report notes the Republic’s prison population had increased by 30 per cent in three years. People being sent to jail for periods of six months or less had jumped from 3,000 in 2005 to 5,000 in 2008. This needed to be addressed by following the example of other EU states that had replaced short prison terms with community-based sanctions.
While acknowledging that Thornton Hall was planned to deal with overcrowding, the committee had “serious misgivings” about a jail for more than 2,000 inmates. Such jails had proved “difficult to manage”.
Special observation cells, or padded cells, were still being used for solitary confinement rather than to observe vulnerable or agitated inmates. One mentally ill inmate was placed in a such a cell alone for more than six weeks, during which time his mental health deteriorated.
