Overcrowding a threat, say prison officers

SOME OF the State’s biggest prisons are now experiencing crisis overcrowding which is putt-ing at risk the safety of staff and inmates, the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) has warned.

The association’s president Jim Mitchell has revealed that on December 8th and 9th last, Cork Prison was holding 326 inmates despite being designed for 168. He said that before a new unit had been opened in Mountjoy Prison in March the jail had held almost 700 inmates despite being designed for 489 and having a bed capacity of 573.

“The impact of having to deal with this level of overcrowding was apparent on numerous occasions in the last 12 months when there were serious disturbances that had to be addressed by prison officers and that led to injury requiring hospital treatment,” he said.

Mr Mitchell was speaking at the opening of the POA’s annual conference in Killarney, Co Kerry, last night.

He said the Irish Prison Service and Department of Justice appeared to have no plan to deal with the overcrowding issue, which was leading to violence.

“Last weekend governor Kathleen McMahon resigned because of this and other issues – an excellent governor – walking out because her voice was not heard within the ‘we know best’ world of the Irish Prison Service.” Ms McMahon has left her post as governor of the women’s Dóchas Centre in Mountjoy seven years before she was due to retire on age grounds.

In an interview with The Irish Times this week she said her position had been made “impossible” by the failure of the prison service to consult her on key issues and a general “lack of respect” shown to her by the service. Ms McMahon warned that overcrowding was now so acute she feared self harm, bullying and violence would emerge in the women’s jail.

Irish Prison Service director general Brian Purcell has denied there was a lack of consultation. He also said he had no option but to accommodate the numbers of women being sent by the courts to the Dóchas Centre.

Mr Mitchell said the Irish Prison Service constantly pointed to the new wings in jails in Portlaoise, Castlerea, Wheatfield and Mountjoy as proof that additional spaces were being added to the system.

However, he said there was never any mention of the fact that three facilities – Spike Island in Cork, Shanganagh Castle in south Dublin, and the Curragh Place of Detention in Co Kildare – had been closed in recent years. These jails had been closed for political expediency, Mr Mitchell said.

The prison service had recently decided to increase the numbers of inmates it claimed the jails were able to hold. In many cases they were now claiming a jail could hold 10 per cent more prisoners than there were spaces for. This was designed to hide the fact jails were overcrowded, he added.