Inspector’s report overly negative, say prison officers

The Prison Officers’ Association yesterday accused the Inspector of Prisons of making “particularly hurtful” and “overly negative” comments about prison staff, including that they “turned a blind eye to gang activities”.

POA deputy general secretary Jim Mitchell said prison officers seized huge amounts of mobile phones, drugs and weapons — which couldn’t be done if they were turning a blind eye.

He pointed out that the POA has raised the problem of gangs at its annual conferences over the last 10 years — and has repeatedly called for gang bosses to be removed from the general prison population.

In a report on prison culture, published on Tuesday, Prisons’ Inspector Judge Michael Reilly said some prison officers “appear to be at a loss” as to how to manage the problem of disorder and prefer to “turn a blind eye to gang activities”.

Mr Purcell said this was “particularly hurtful” to staff given the work they do and had led to “unbalanced” media coverage.

Speaking on RTE’s Morning Ireland, he said he agreed with the inspector’s comment that there was no organisational strategy to deal with gangs.

“We have time and time again called for the gang leaders to be isolated, in a separate institution, taken out of the general population,” Mr Mitchell said. “These people have huge degrees of authority over other individuals once they are in the general population.”

He rejected criticisms in the report of the “closed mindset” of prison staff and that some engaged in inappropriate, unprofessional and misogynistic behaviour.

Mr Mitchell said any “isolationist mindset was about self-preservation”.

He pointed out that a prison officer had his home attacked and his cars burned out in Finglas, north Dublin, last weekend because he was a prison officer. There was a similar incident in Cork earlier in the year.