Call to remove 17 year olds from St Patrick’s over violence
The Irish Examiner reported yesterday that St Patrick’s was the most violent jail in the State, with far more assaults than adult prisons, including Mountjoy.
Prison Service figures show there were 367 assaults on prisoners by other inmates in St Patrick’s in 2011 — accounting for a third of all such assaults in the entire prison system last year. This is up on 2010, when there were 323 assaults.
There were 48 assaults on prison staff by inmates in the Dublin jail — accounting for 30% of all such assaults. This marks a rise from 38 in 2010.
The Irish Penal Reform Trust said the level of assaults in St Patrick’s was “extremely alarming” and said there was a “profound culture of violence” there.
Director Liam Herrick said the figures along with other reports of bullying and drug use there, raised the question of whether or not the institution should be shut down.
St Patrick’s houses 17-27- year-old males, both sentenced and on remand awaiting trial.
It used to house 16-year-olds, but, as previously reported in the Irish Examiner, the last such child left the prison in July.
Advocacy officer of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice Eoin Carroll said “major progress” had been made in the removal of a substantial number of children from St Patrick’s.
He said previous figures showed up to a third of people in the jail were held on “protection”, meaning they were locked up for 20 to 22 hours a day. Mr Carroll said while the figures had not been updated, “no child” should be locked up for such a long time and it was a breach of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.
He said children should be removed from St Patrick’s before the Government’s deadline of the close of 2013: “While efforts have been made by the Irish Prison Service to provide segregation and an enhanced regime for children in St Patrick’s, the message is that it is alright for children to stay in an institution condemned by the CPT Committee and the 1985 Whittaker Report until a new facility is built.”
Meanwhile, the Prison Service clarified that figures it previously released for prisoner- on-prisoner assaults in 2010 (770) was inaccurate and the true figure was 1,014. This compares to 1,115 inter-prisoner assaults in 2011, up 9%.
