Prison officers criticise bosses for cutting praised rehabilitation scheme

THE Prison Officers’ Association (POA) has strongly criticised prison bosses for slashing a much-praised rehabilitation programme in Mountjoy Jail.

The POA said the work parties were “unilaterally halved” by the Irish Prison Service (IPS) last March.

Work parties operate every day, all year round and involve taking a small group of inmates out to do various types of community work.

The 2007 report of the Mountjoy Visiting Committee, published last Friday, praised the work parties.

Their report, completed before one of the work parties was axed, said they welcomed the “ongoing commitment” to the work parties by the minister for justice, the IPS and the governors at Mountjoy.

POA president Jim Mitchell said the work parties gave skills to the prisoners. He also said they offered an outlet to ease the “pressure cooker” atmosphere in Mountjoy that had been identified by an internal IPS report, details of which were published last Monday in the Irish Examiner. “The practice of utilising work parties is important for the rehabilitation of the individual prisoner and in easing the ‘pressure cooker’ environment. There is no justification for a reduction in this most positive practice,” said Mr Mitchell.

“This activity is referred to in the 2007 Annual Report of the Mountjoy Visiting Committee where they endorse the external work party concept. Yet, in spite of objections by the Prison Officers’ Association, this practice was unilaterally halved by the Irish Prison Service.”

He said there were usually around four to five prisoners in each work party.

“They work in community centres and hospices, designing gardens and that kind of thing.” He said Mountjoy governor John Lonergan had been very supportive of them. Mr Mitchell said the axing was nothing to do with the escape of a Bolivian drug dealer from a Mountjoy work party in May 2007. Juan Carlos Alba was one of three prisoners performing community work in north Dublin when he gave officers escorting them the slip.

The Mountjoy Visiting Committee said in their report: “Our visits to work parties and our discussions with everybody concerned, is universally positive and we believe the scheme definitely worth expanding.”

A Prison Service spokesman said: “In relation to the provision of such initiatives, the available resources are assigned by management to where they can be of most benefit to the prisoner population.”