Bridge Project: Breaking the vicious circle

THREE years ago, Jim stabbed a guy. He was drinking very heavily, which worsened after his baby was stillborn.

He was clocking up more charges after the stabbing, including assault.

“My head was mush. I couldn’t think for a second. I knew I was going down. I didn’t give a f**k. I was getting more aggressive. I was thinking of suicide.”

At that stage his probation officer put him in contact with the Bridge Project, in Dublin’s north inner city. The project was set up in 1991 by Justice Michael Moriarty (now of the Moriarty Tribunal) in the Dublin Circuit Court.

“He saw these guys in and out, and said is there something we can do, so he set up Bridge with Probation,” said Gerry Raftery, director of the project.

For Jim, his life has changed. He got a three-year suspended sentence for the stabbing. He was sent for alcohol treatment, psychotherapy and was then referred to Bridge.

“There’s a lot of psychotherapy here with the probation officers. Things settle down, your brain gets settled. They stop you making bad decisions. I had a lot of depression also. They teach you to think about the consequences. They teach you to think correctly under pressure.”

He said was “clean and sober” for 20 months and was meeting someone in FÁS today about enrolling in a photography course.

Now 40, he reckoned he would be dead or still serving a sentence if he wasn’t in Bridge.

“Things can only get better. I’m out of that hole, or that grave, as I thought a few years ago.”

Damien is also attending the project. Aged 28, he spent most of his life homeless, on the streets, thanks to a rough upbringing with his stepfather.

He was in and out of prison and got a chance to come to Bridge after he got caught selling drugs.

“Since I came here, my life has been changed around, basically. I was strung out on gear. Since I started here, I haven’t touched it.”

He said he has five certificates in a range of courses, including drug awareness, anger management and offending behaviour, and has another one on the way.

“Offending behaviour and anger management is all to do with your crimes and talking about it. I can feel how victims feel.”

He said the company in the programme was a big factor and there was “good crack” with the probation officers. “They’re not like coppers, you can talk to them, confide in them, tell them things.”

He had applied to the Access programme in Trinity College and hoped to progress his talents at drawing and art.

He said every offender “should be given a chance” and that there should be projects like Bridge in every city.

“The way I was going I was only going to jail for a long sentence or into the ground. I can’t say I’m not going to go back to crime, but, touch wood, I take every day as it comes. My doctor is happy with me, my probation officer is happy with me, I’ve a new baby coming along. I’ve a lot looking up for me now.”

Tony is 27, but looks a lot younger. He said he has 24 convictions, the first when he was 13, after he left school.

“I’ve been in prison since I was 14, in and out of St Patrick’s, Mountjoy, Spike Island, Cloverhill. You’re confined, in cells, drugs are sold. Prison only makes people worse.”

He was referred by the Circuit Court after being convicted of a firearms charge, for possessing a pellet gun. His big stumbling block at first was his inability to read, but following individual help, he cracked that.

“I can now read newspapers, a small book. I couldn’t before.”

He said he now wants to do his Junior Cert.

“Bridge has shown me I can do it. It gets me up out of bed, stopped me doing what I was doing, taking tablets and taking cars.”

He said staff in Bridge get people to think about their lives.

“When you come in here you get out of the vicious circle. It feels good. They tell you ‘you can do your Junior Cert’. It feels good when you achieve.”

Mr Raftery said with six probation officers at Bridge they deal with between 90 and 100 offenders each year.

He said Bridge are referred people from the Circuit Court for fairly serious charges, including burglary, armed robbery, drugs, assaults and serious assaults up to and including, in a few cases, manslaughter.

He said an important element was offending behaviour and getting them to understand the impact of their crime and the perspective of the victim. He said the programmes give offenders the opportunity to “grow in self-awareness, change their attitudes to victims and most of all enable them to make positive changes to their lifestyle”.

He said they measure success, not on simple re-offending, but on reducing the “frequency and gravity” of offending.

He said if offenders start engaging with them voluntarily they know they are having success.

He reckoned about a third did this, while another third go along with the course because they have to.

The remaining third cooperate reluctantly or not at all, and are extremely difficult to engage.

An external evaluation in 2005 saw great potential in Bridge and said it could serve as a model for other similar projects.

Mr Raftery said the average cost of keeping someone in Bridge was about €12,500 a year.

“With extra resources we could do more. There’s more of a political will to build a bigger prison — and we do need prisons — rather than design programmes that are an alternative to custody.”