Prison Violence and Overcrowding in Prisons

News Release

6 March, 2009

Prison Violence Highlights the Need to Address Overcrowding in Prisons

Responding to the violence in Mountjoy Prison today, the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice has said that this disturbing incident highlights the need for urgent measures to improve conditions in our prisons so as to ensure the safety of both prison officers and prisoners. The Centre says that attacks on officers are to be unreservedly condemned but in the aftermath of today’s incident attention needs to be given to the fact that the overcrowding which is endemic within the system is a key, underlying factor in creating tension and violence with prisons.

Fr Peter McVerry SJ, of the Jesuit Centre, who regularly visits Dublin prisons, including Mountjoy, commented: “The culture of violence has become so pervasive in our prison system that large numbers of prisoners are placed ‘on protection’ for 23 hours each day, so that they have limited access to educational and recreational facilities. Overcrowding isn’t the only factor in creating this culture of violence but it is a key one. Until the numbers in each prison are reduced to the level where proper accommodation and facilities can be provided for everyone who is detained, then there is no hope of effectively addressing this problem.”

Eoin Carroll, Advocacy Officer of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice, said: “There is an absence of real commitment within the criminal justice system to reserving imprisonment for the most serious offences.” He pointed out that over a quarter of people in prison in 2007 were serving sentence for ‘Offences against property without violence’; there was little reason to believe that the proportion is substantially lower today. Carroll pointed out: “For every nine prisoners serving a sentence for the most serious offences (such as murder, manslaughter and sexual offences) there are eleven in prison for property crimes without violence.” He added that one of the most disturbing features of the Irish prison system was the high proportion of prisoners who suffer mental illness or have addiction problems.

Eoin Carroll said that analysis of prison statistics highlights the need – and scope – for a significant reduction in the use of imprisonment for non-violent offences and a corresponding expansion of non-custodial sentences that would focus on rehabilitation and restitution.  “Instead, however, the Government is planning to greatly expand the number of prison places”, Carroll said.   He added: “The proposed Thornton Hall prison complex has been presented as the panacea to the problems of overcrowding and violence. However, violence and intimidation is likely to infect and undermine the regime of the proposed Thornton Hall prison due to its immense size – far greater than the optimum recommended by many experts on penal policy – and the type of design that is proposed.”

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For further information please contact:
Eoin Carroll, 01 855 6814; 087 2250793
Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice