Drugs "affecting every prison inmate"

DRUGS are so dominant in the prison system that they affect every inmate, a conference on the treatment of drug offenders has been told.

Dr Paul O'Mahony, a leading criminologist, told the conference in Dublin, there was a "silent accommodation" in place between management and prisoners on drugs. At a superficial level a prohibitive and repressive anti drugs system was in place but in reality there was a "kind of acquiescence" to the overwhelming prevalence of the drugs culture in the criminal justice system.

Dr O'Mahony criticised the way the methadone maintenance system was used in Irish society. He said it was policy to adhere to a strictly prohibitive approach to drugs but all efforts and resources went into methadone maintenance.

It was seen as a method to combat criminals and to prevent HIV infection. Yet there was no monitoring, no analysis, no psychological testing and no real policy to consider abstinence as a goal.

The conference was also told there was research to indicate that detoxification from methadone was more difficult than coming off heroin, and other methods of drug treatment should also be considered.

Mr Patrick O'Dea of the probation and welfare branch of IMPACT said there were 96 places in a "drug free zone" attached to Mountjoy prison. This was a "tacit admission" that the rest of the prison system was drug infected. Prisoners should be "absolutely guaranteed" that they would be in drug free areas.

Probation officers at the conference called for the "education of the judiciary" on the role of the probation service so that judges would realise that drug treatment was a long term rehabilitation process and not a "quick fix".