Drug use in prisons - A disturbing picture of indifference

AS OPPORTUNITIES for knee-jerk reactions go, yesterday’s news that there were nearly 40,000 positive drug tests in our prisons in the last three years is about as good as it gets.

It’s got glaring official incompetence, evidence of regular cocktail hours in prisons and further frightening proof that those behind Ireland’s drug culture can give two fingers to officialdom any time they choose to.

The figures also indicate that there has not been any fall in drug usage in prisons since the Government initiated a campaign with that aim four years ago.

The potential for bluster is immense but in reality it is another of those occasions, now far, far too frequent, when a worn-out despair stands where there should be justifiable anger.

That despair can only deepen when you listen to the frustration of prison officers who, when they discover that someone is trying to smuggle drugs into a prison, can do nothing other than send them away because they have no powers of detention.

How’s that for joined-up thinking? How’s that for a deterrent to someone trying to smuggle cocaine or heroin into prison? How’s that for a war on drugs?

Though farcical, it fits in perfectly with our ineffectual response, a response exemplified by the anti-cocaine campaign launched just last week by the HSE.

How anyone imagined such a ‘who’s-a-naughty-boy’ dialogue might stop anyone using cocaine is beyond comprehension. The campaign, as it is presented, is as tragic a waste of public money as we have seen, and in the land of non-electronic electronic voting, that’s a fairly high bar.

Prisons should be a place of security and refuge for inmates too. A refuge where someone trying to recover their life has an opportunity to do so. However, as these figures indicate, being a guest of the nation does not impede anyone’s ability to sustain a drug habit and greatly diminishes anyone’s prospect of leaving prison as a reformed addict rather than a practicing one.

Not only can you leave prison dependent on heroin, you do so greatly in debt to the jailhouse godfathers who sustained your habit while you were behind bars.

And so the circle remains unbroken.

Not only have we failed the principles of justice which dictate that our prisons should be drug free, we have failed the prisoners by not having enough regard for the possibility of at least some of them becoming better citizens by not ensuring that they have an environment which will help them become drug free.

Yesterday, Justice Minister Brian Lenihan described these figures as “disturbing” and offered the services of a few sniffer dogs “within weeks” as a response.

What is really disturbing is that this situation developed in the first place, what is scandalous is that it is allowed to continue.

Neither the department nor the Prison Service come out of this in a good light. You can have all the blather you like about resources and commitment but it remains a mystery to anyone outside the prison service why our prisons are awash with drugs and why nothing effective is being done about it.

Undoubtedly, Mr Lenihan would have brought these figures to public attention in due course but the Irish Times used the Freedom of Information Act to ensure their early publication, the very instrument of transparency this government is determined to curtail.

It would be more to the point if they curtailed drug use in prisons.