Chaplain blames drugs for prison violence
Speaking in the wake of the savage murder of an inmate, 23-year-old Gary Douch, prison chaplain Charlie Hoey said there has been a marked increase in the level of violence within Mountjoy.
“I think that drugs play a huge part in that. Unfortunately there is a drug problem in the prison as there is in many prisons. We have also got people coming in who are psychiatric who should never be in the criminal system at all,” he said.
A huge number of people were entering prison with addiction problems and Mountjoy did not have the facilities to deal with the consequences of prisoners with drug addiction, he said.
In order to help prisoners come off drugs and deal with the consequent issues, the proper resources had to be put in place, he said.
“If we don’t have resources and the drugs are stopped, I would be very fearful for the lives of many people, not just prisoners, but the staff as well because I think the tension would rise drastically.
“The reality of the lives of the lads in here is quite sad really, they are constantly coming back to jail because in the jail there is no rehabilitation because of overcrowding and lack of resources,” Mr Hoey said.
“We (the chaplains) have shown over the years that the prison system is not working. In fact, it does not work at all. The numbers of prisoners are increasing, crime is increasing, the drug problem is increasing, therefore we need to look at some alternatives.
“There are a lot of voices shouting out there and suggesting different ways and unfortunately their voices are not heard,” he said in an interview on RTÉ radio.
The drug problem which was evident in society in general was the same in prisons, Mr Hoey said.
“It’s very hard to tackle it in Mountjoy unless it’s tackled in society,” he said.
There was a particular problem with overcrowding at present, a matter which he said had been highlighted by prison chaplains over the years.
The drug problem generated a huge amount of fear and violence within the prison walls, he said, and some prisoners bullied others to have drugs smuggled into prison.
“If we are going to stop drugs coming into the prison system completely, we have to have the resources within the system to deal with that. And that means not just proper methadone programmes and detox, we also need proper counselling services for those coming off drugs.”
A recent study, the first psychiatric survey of a cross-section of male and female prisoners, revealed that 60% of female inmates and 35% of male inmates have suffered from mental illness at some stage in their lives.
The research, led by the head of the Central Mental Hospital, called for greatly improved mental health services in the community and in prisons, and diversion schemes to direct mentally-ill offenders away from the courts and into treatment.
