Mountjoy Prison is overcrowded and underfunded, a leaked report confirms, with dangerous results for prisoners and staff
WHEN GARY Douche was murdered in a basement cell in Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison almost three years ago, the killing highlighted the many shortcomings of the prison system. The 21-year-old from Coolock, north Dublin, died after being attacked in the early hours of August 1st, 2006. He was killed while sharing a basement cell with a group of inmates.
Some, like Douche, were sleeping there as a protective measure after expressing fears to prison officers that they were under threat from inmates in the prison proper. Some of the others had just been committed to Mountjoy and were put into the communal cell because there were no other beds for them in the jail.
The basement cells were designed to simply hold newly committed inmates for periods of up to a few hours before their transfer to other prisons around the country. They were never intended to house inmates overnight but were used for that purpose because of overcrowding.
Prison sources at the time complained that the overcrowding issue, while a long-term feature of the Irish prison system, had become so acute in Mountjoy that the prison was dangerous for inmates and staff alike. They said the tragic killing of Gary Douche was the realisation of their worst fears.
At the time of the Douche killing, overcrowding in Mountjoy was at record levels; with 527 inmates in prison with a bed capacity for just 470. The Government moved immediately to make changes. It was decided any inmate who requested protective custody would be housed in a single-berth cell for at least the first 24 hours of his segregation.
Mountjoy was a committal prison at the time of Gary Douche’s murder, meaning all inmates sentenced in the courts in Dublin were processed through it before being transferred to other jails. This situation was changed after the Douche killing, with other Dublin jails becoming committal institutions in an effort to alleviate overcrowding in Mountjoy.
At first the measures worked. The population in Mountjoy fell from 527 to 425 within days of the murder. But the number of criminals being sentenced by the courts has increased in recent years, because crime is rising and Garda detections are also up. New figures released this week show the population of Mountjoy now numbers a record 633. An unpublished report from the Mountjoy visiting committee obtained by The Irish Timespointed again to the dangerous levels of overcrowding.
Officers say overcrowding raises tensions that can lead to violence. They say it also puts massive pressure on the meagre educational and rehabilitative resources in Mountjoy. It makes it harder to keep rival gang members apart and means there are few places, if any, to move troublemakers or vulnerable inmates who believe they are about to be attacked.
“At meal times, prisoners get their food in the kitchen and take it to their cells where two or three of them are locked into a cell meant for one because there’s no communal area big enough for large numbers to eat,” says one source. “If they then need the loo, they are urinating and defecating in chamber pots in cells while the others are still eating.”
Others say because there are now so many prisoners in the jail, it is virtually impossible to accommodate inmates with showers and visits.
“Their wives are coming up and because we’re now searching visitors for drugs, the women are being delayed for long periods, then going to see their partners and complaining about the delays. Then the inmates are in bad form; you can see it in their faces when they leave the visiting areas. They are actually in worse form after a visit, and when that’s repeated again and again the tension levels increase.”
IN THE PAST nine months alone there have been two serious riots in Mountjoy which involved large-scale criminal damage and the targeting of staff.
In the first case last summer, an organised group action saw inmates gain control of a recreation area by locking staff out. They then went on to vandalise the recreation area and nearby workshops before prison officers dressed in riot gear were sent in to bring the situation under control.
In the past fortnight there was another disturbance when the jail had to be locked down after inmates threw the contents of chamber pots over staff.
A new clampdown on drug supply in recent months has also ratcheted up tensions in Mountjoy – which is one of the biggest methadone clinics in the country. And dedicated search teams have been regularly turning over cells looking for smuggled mobile phones.
It means prison officers working in a crowded jail – most of which was condemned years ago – are searching more aggressively than ever for phones and drugs. The success of those searches causes resentment and means many of the serious drug users in the jail are spending lengthy periods suffering withdrawal symptoms.
One officer says that while violence in Mountjoy only reaches the media when serious events arise, attacks between inmates are a constant feature. “You can’t keep criminals in a crowded jail and then take phones and drugs off them and not expect violence to blow up regularly.”
Another officer says some weaker inmates are being forced into collecting drugs when they are granted temporary release for short periods.
He says one inmate smuggled in drugs valued in a prison setting at several thousand euro after a brief period of release. When the drugs were found in his cell the next morning, the prisoner was attacked by a group of inmates led by those who had arranged the smuggling.
“Their attitude is that if the fella who was collecting the drugs on the outside gets caught, then he pays the price by being attacked.”
THE SOURCE SAYS heroin valued at about €7,000 on the streets would be worth in the region of €20,000 in a jail, where drugs are scarcer. The drugs are sold in prison and are paid for when a person visiting the buyer leaves money at the jail for him. The money is then signed out to visitors coming up to see the inmate who sold the drugs.
This week The Irish Times printed extracts from an unpublished report into conditions at Mountjoy. The report, by the prison’s visiting committee, highlighted virtually all of the issues raised by the various prison sources who spoke to this reporter. It also said that overcrowding was a key issue.
The committee praised the staff and management at the jail, saying they had handled last summer’s riot well and generally worked in a professional manner. For its part, the Irish Prison Service is hamstrung by the worsening economic conditions, with little money available to introduce measures to effectively address many of the problems.
The overcrowding issue across the system was exacerbated in 2005 when Spike Island jail in Cork and the Curragh Place of Detention in Co Kildare were closed to cut costs.
In recent years, whenever issues of concern at Mountjoy are raised – either by the Prison Officers’ Association or the media – the Irish Prison Service, Department of Justice and successive ministers for Justice have pointed to the planned 2,200-berth jail at Thornton Hall in north Co Dublin as a panacea. It will replace Mountjoy.
But negotiations with the syndicate selected to build and run the new jail have been stalled for around three years now. Many in the prison system say Thornton Hall simply will not be built until economic conditions improve and the massive borrowings needed for the public-private partnership are more freely available.
Currently 13 of the State’s 15 jails are operating over capacity. The problem is so bad in the women’s Dóchas Centre jail in the Mountjoy complex that any inmate serving a sentence of below 20 months was released last year to make room for more serious offenders.
The Mountjoy visiting committee report said its members understand “by word of mouth” that Thornton Hall has been put on hold for a number of years.
In order to address overcrowding in the absence of the new jail, it recommended the courts hand down more non-custodial sentences. The Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, wants to introduce electronic tagging, which would take many low-risk offenders out of prisons.
With Mountjoy and other jails bursting at the seams, and tensions rising as drugs become slightly harder to come by, it would appear alternatives to imprisonment need to be found, and fast.
Prison population
On March 9th, 2009, there were 3,790 prisoners in custody in Ireland and a bed capacity of 3,611, representing an occupancy level of 105 per cent.
Here is a breakdown of prison population in each prison/place of detention:
Arbour Hill Prison, Dublin 7Capacity: 148Prisoners: 153
Castlerea, Co RoscommonCapacity: 228Prisoners: 257
Cloverhill Prison, Dublin 22Capacity: 431Prisoners: 451
Cork Prison, Co CorkCapacity: 272Prisoners: 282
Dóchas Centre, MountjoyCapacity: 85Prisoners: 108
Limerick Prison (male)Capacity: 275Prisoners: 309
Limerick Prison (female)Capacity: 20Prisoners: 22
Loughan House, Co CavanCapacity: 130Prisoners: 127
Midlands Prison, Co LaoisCapacity: 469Prisoners: 498
Mountjoy Prison (male)Capacity: 540Prisoners: 633
Portlaoise Prison, Co LaoisCapacity: 210Prisoners: 105
Shelton Abbey, Co WicklowCapacity: 90Prisoners: 92
St Patrick's Institution, Dublin 7Capacity: 216Prisoners: 226
Training Unit, Dublin 7Capacity: 107Prisoners: 111
Wheatfield Prison, ClondalkinCapacity: 390Prisoners: 416