{"id":10129,"date":"2020-12-09T16:09:44","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T16:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=10129"},"modified":"2020-12-09T16:09:44","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T16:09:44","slug":"irish-prison-reform-long-overdue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2020\/12\/09\/irish-prison-reform-long-overdue\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish Prison Reform Long Overdue"},"content":{"rendered":"

The degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
\n<\/em>Fyodor Dostoevsky, The House of the Dead<\/em> (1862).<\/span><\/p>\n

The quote above is from a work of fiction, but the author was drawing on a memory of four years imprisonment, following conviction for involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle \u2013 a Russian literary discussion group of progressive-minded intellectuals opposed to Tsardom.<\/p>\n

The great novelist only narrowly avoided a firing squad too \u2013 a stay of execution arriving at the last moment \u2013 which shaped his views on the death penalty. In The Idiot<\/em> (1869) Prince Myshkin offers a salutary critique: \u2018the whole terrible agony lies in the fact that you will most certainly not escape, and there is no greater agony than that\u2019. He asks: \u2018Who says that human nature is capable of bearing this without madness?\u2019<\/p>\n

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A sketch of the Petrachevsky Circle mock execution.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For morals reasons \u2013 the idea of the state descending to premeditated killing \u2013 most jurisdictions no longer permit execution of prisoners following conviction for capital crimes. The strong likelihood of miscarriages of justice makes the argument against the death penalty appear insurmountable. A 2014 study<\/a><\/span> indicated that one-in-twenty-five sentenced to death in the U.S. had been innocent.<\/p>\n

The idea endures, nonetheless, that certain offences place perpetrators beyond the pale, incapable of redemption \u2013 diabolic even \u2013 wherein they are viewed as a perpetual threat to society, or even a moral contagion.<\/p>\n

But, like it or not, the vast majority of prisoners do eventually re-join society, and it is in the wider community\u2019s interest \u2013 with due regard for a victim\u2019s or their relatives\u2019 thirst for retribution \u2013 that convicts are rehabilitated to the extent they emerge as law-abiding and, ideally, self-sufficient citizens.<\/p>\n

Given an estimated one in every two <\/a><\/span>re-offend within three years of release in Ireland it appears the correct balance between punishment and rehabilitation is not being struck. A \u2018Bibilical\u2019 \u2018eye for an eye\u2019 view \u2013 reconciling moral accounts \u2013 still informs Irish attitudes to incarceration, with overcrowding exacerbating difficulties in an inadequate prison infrastructure.<\/p>\n

According to F\u00edona N\u00ed Chinn\u00e9ide<\/a><\/span>, of the Irish Penal Reform Trust in July: \u2018At the outset of the pandemic, Irish Prisons were way overcrowded, you had people sleeping on mattresses on the floor.\u2019<\/p>\n

With courts resuming normal service, she feared prison populations would rise sharply, leading to further overcrowding: \u2018I mean, in the best of times overcrowded prisons do not support rehabilitation and lead to increased tensions, drugs and violence, but Covid-19 brings an additional layer to this.\u2019<\/p>\n

Small Scandinavian countries<\/a><\/span> such as Norway (20% after two years), Denmark (29% after two years) and Finland (36% after two years) currently lead the world in curbing recidivism. This can be attributed to prisons preparing inmates for life on the outside, including through open prisons that reintegrate offenders back into communities.<\/p>\n

Slopping Out <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A de-humanization of prisoners is evident in the nineteenth century layout of Mountjoy Prison, the conditions of which could drive anyone to madness, or at least perpetuate a life in crime. Any visitor can discern a judgmental Victorian morality pervading the edifice.<\/p>\n

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Mountjoy Prison, Dublin 1850 Illustrated London News Public Domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The spectre of Henry Martin Hitchins<\/a><\/span>, formerly Inspector for Government Prisons in Ireland, who oversaw its opening in 1850 lingers. He advised the first governor:<\/p>\n

prisoners committed to your charge have been convicted of grave offences against God and man, that they have forfeited their civil rights and are confined much to protect society against their evil practices as to afford them an opportunity of repentance and reformation. It is therefore of primary importance that the prisoners should be brought to a proper sense of their condition and after the religious exhortations of the chaplains nothing so directly tends to effect this object as a firm and steady exercise of a severe discipline.<\/em><\/p>\n

Inhumane features of the nineteenth century regime endure wherein the prisoner forfeits basic civil rights and experiences degrading treatment. Gary Simpson<\/a><\/span> was held in Mountjoy Prison between February and September 2013. As a \u2018protection prisoner\u2019 he was kept in isolation from other prisoners \u2013 detained in cells on the D1 wing prior to its refurbishment. During that period there was no in-cell sanitation, nor even a sink providing running water.<\/p>\n

Prisoners were normally provided with a \u2018slopping out\u2019 chamber pot and a plastic bucket of water for washing their hands. Simpson brought an action for damages in response, alleging he was regularly compelled to urinate into empty milk cartons as the chamber pot was too small to be used more than twice without being emptied. He claimed he had to defecate into a refuse bag for the same reason.<\/p>\n

Simpson received damages of \u20ac7,500 in 2019 after contending with conditions the Supreme Court agreed breached a constitutional right to a basic level of dignity while in prison. The paltry nature of this award \u2013 commensurate with a soft tissue injury<\/a><\/span> \u2013 is a damning reflection on the degree of Irish civilisation.<\/p>\n

Disturbingly, despite a government pledge in 2017 to end the practice by this year, it was revealed in August that fifty-one inmates in Irish prisons are still slopping out<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

It could be you\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Most of us, generally law-abiding citizens are not kept awake at night at the prospect of a stretch behind bars, but even among \u2018respectable\u2019 families there are often members who find themselves on the wrong side of the law. And delving into family histories invariably yields an ancestor who has offended against dominant morals expressed in the laws of the day.<\/p>\n

In my own case, a great-grandfather Luke Armstrong (1853-1910) of Tubbercurry, Co. Sligo was subjected to at least two stretches behind bars for activities he viewed as political \u2013 the so-called Land War of the early 1880s \u2013 but which the Crown authorities considered criminal. An ambitious shopkeeper, \u2018who was better dressed than his Tubbercurry companions<\/span><\/a>,\u2019 he was arrested in April, 1884 and charged with his fellow conspirators with being a member of the Fenian Society, and conspiring to murder a land agent.<\/p>\n

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An eviction during the Land War.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Luke Armstrong and his co-defendants were eventually transferred to Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin, and brought to trial the following November at Green Street Courthouse. Thankfully, given the gravity of the charges, all the accused were acquitted based on the unreliability of the Crown informant\u2019s evidence.<\/p>\n

As a high-ranking member of the IRB, this was not Luke\u2019s first brush with authority. He was also incarcerated in Enniskillen<\/span><\/a> Gaol earlier in the 1880s where he was subjected to \u2018two days\u2019 solitary confinement by the Governor. Luke must have gained extensive experience of slopping out during these unwelcome sojourns.<\/p>\n

The Land War of the 1880s may seem like a far off, almost mythical, period, but as recently as the 1940s Irish political prisoners were held \u2013 for years on end in many cases \u2013 without trial under Emergency Powers Orders in Nissen huts in the Curragh \u2013 labelled Tin Town (Baile an St\u00e1in<\/em> or an Bhaile St\u00e1in<\/em>) by internees that included the novelist M\u00e1irti\u00edn \u00d3 Cadhain<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n