Reform of our prison system requires bold steps

With 62% of our former prisoners re-offending within three years of release it’s obvious that

IT’S almost comical now to think that Kilmainham Gaol — voted Ireland’s top landmark by Tripadvisor for the fourth year in a row — was once considered a dream disciplinary machine that could “grind rogues honest”.

All you had to do was put hardened criminals in at one end of this vast correctional cage, ensure they were separated, silenced and supervised at all times, then watch as they were “ground honest” to re-emerge upstanding citizens at the other end.

The prison building itself was designed to transform deviant behaviour into socially acceptable behaviour. It was a “machine to grind rogues honest”, as Jeremy Bentham put it when he developed the panopticon, or all-seeing prison, in 1769. At the time, his invention was hailed not only an innovation in prison architecture but an event of the human mind.

If prisoners knew they were being watched, or might be watched at any time, then their behaviour would improve. Or so went the thinking, though as we know in this world with ‘eyes’ at every street corner that is patently not the case.

Back in 1861, though, the east wing at Kilmainham jail was intended to ensure that those held captive within it were always visible. A strip of carpet was even laid along the landings so that 19th-century jailers could creep up and peer into cells through a spy-hole on the door, nicknamed the “eye that never sleeps”.

The building’s fascinating social history has been obscured in the recent commemoration of the 1916 leaders who spent their last days in this “city of cells, a place where the silence is a piercing wail”, as Sean O’Casey once described it, but it’s worth recalling now, if only to remind us of how little progress we’ve made.

If 19th-century architects used space to enclose, separate and control, modern architects have been more inclined to favour green areas, openness and integration.

Though, it’s interesting to see that prison officers — the people on the ground — are once again calling for the separation of prisoners to tackle the issue of gangs in the prison system.

Prison Officer Association President Stephen Delaney warned last month that violence linked to the feud that has already claimed seven lives on the streets of Dublin has broken out in prisons and he has called for a system of isolation to be established.

Reducing the power of the gangs in prison will also restrict their capacity to control matters on the outside — so all of society will benefit, he reasoned.

Just this week, the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice also called for separation, saying younger inmates should be kept away from older ones. Some prisoners, its study found, were locked up for up to 23 hours a day because they feared for their own safety.

It’s a bleak picture illustrating that prisons, however you build them, are often ill-equipped to do what is expected of them. High recidivism rates (62% of prisoners will reoffend in three years) are proof that prisons do not rehabilitate, though many are happy that they simply keep the wrongdoers off the street.

What is particularly striking when you compare the prison of yesterday, with its high ideals, and its modern equivalent is that the profile of the average prisoner hasn’t changed a jot since the 19th century. An Irish prisoner is still 25 times more likely to come from — and return to — a seriously deprived area.

Nobody’s going to pretend that the well-to-do and those in the corporate world don’t break the law. This week’s finding that Anglo Irish executives were guilty of conspiring to defraud the public in 2008 is a rare example of the untouchables being called to account.

Why is that? Is it because we are inclined to think corporate wheeling and dealing is necessary to grease the wheels of industry or is it because it’s obscenely convenient to lock up those who leave school early, are out of work and/or have a history of addiction?

Whatever the answer, we now have an unrivalled opportunity to do something radical to break the vicious cycle that has entrapped so many from disadvantaged communities.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald’s allocation of resources to fund a new crime taskforce has been welcomed by those working in Dublin’s inner city.

But — and this is a really vital but — it needs to go further. Anna Quigley from the Inner City Organisations Network has said you can’t address the policing problem without providing support for drug addicts and increasing economic opportunities for people in the area all at the same time.

Independent TD Maureen O’Sullivan echoes that view. The former teacher said education seemed to be the Cinderella of the Government’s new strategy, but it was vital: the majority of Irish prisoners have never sat a State exam. In 2008, of the 520 who enrolled in the school at Mountjoy Prison, 20% could not read or write, according to Irish Penal Reform Trust figures.

When will the Government listen to those who really know what it’s like to have their lives fractured by crime and social deprivation and reach further and deeper for real, lasting solutions?

The findings from the Troubled Families Programme in the UK offers a possible path to radical change. Earlier this week, its director general, Louise Casey, explained how the scheme had helped turn around the lives of some 120,000 so-called troubled families in the UK, saving the government an impressive £29,000 per family, per year.

After the 2011 riots, the British Government gave the country’s 152 local authorities £448m to identify and help families at risk. The results have been impressive and the savings considerable.

The initial investment involves huge money. And more, the type of bold, imaginative and far-reaching steps that are generally not favoured by governments during their, at best, five-year lifetimes.

The alternative, though, is pretty bleak. Fast forward another 100 years – without action, prisons will still be locking up the poor and disadvantaged.

Twitter: @FinnClodagh