asked the Minister for Justice when the Mountjoy training centre, Dublin will be completed; the facilities to be provided by it; if the training received will be recognised by the unions and AnCO; if the training facilities will be available to prisoners in St. Patrick's Institution; and the criteria that will be used to select persons for training.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Prisoners' Welfare.
37.
The training unit has been completed and the machinery required for the industrial training programmes that will be followed there has already been installed. As soon as the specialist staff have been recruited and a difficulty in relation to electric power supply overcome, the programme will get fully under way. This should be within the next few months.
The programmes are ones recommended by AnCO and they equip those who complete them successfully for semi-skilled jobs in industry and they are recognised as such by the relevant trade unions. It is envisaged that juveniles from St. Patrick's will be among those taking the courses in the training unit.
The criteria for the selection of persons for the courses will include suitability, aptitude, job interest, length of sentence and availability of places.
38.
asked the Minister for Justice the role of the prison social welfare officer in the after-care of prisoners; if there is any method of monitoring the record of ex-prisoners for a period after their release to assess the success of the prison system; and the rate of recidivism in adult and juvenile prisoners.
In regard to the first part of the question, I would refer the Deputy to the written reply which I gave to Question No. 120 on yesterday's Order Paper.
It would be an infringement on the liberty of an individual and an intrusion into his privacy for the welfare service to keep a watch on him after expiry of his sentence but where a person on release is in need of advice or of help in regard to personal problems or employment or accommodation the welfare service of my Department are available to assist at any time.
A table showing the numbers of persons in prison who have served a period or periods of imprisonment on other occasions is given in the annual reports on prisons. It is hoped to have the reports for 1973 and 1974 published very shortly. Similar figures are not kept in respect of juveniles sentenced to detention and, in any case, it would be inappropriate to classify a juvenile as a recidivist unless he persists in a life of crime beyond the point of maturity, at which point statistics regarding his recidivism become reflected in the adult figures.
There seems to be an implication in the question that the success or failure of a prison system can somehow be measured in terms of recidivism. This, however, is an invalid assumption since, for one thing, we cannot know what a person's conduct would be had he not been imprisoned. Another implication is that recidivism is capable of being drastically reduced, if not eliminated, by changes in the prison system.
Regrettably, international experience and research do not bear out any such assumption. It is increasingly coming to be realised even—or perhaps especially—in those countries which some groups here hold out as having what they term progressive penal systems that the best efforts at rehabilitation have little effect in very many cases. This in no way means that plans and programmes to improve facilities in prisons should or will be put aside or that there is any doubt about the need to do what we can. It is simply to bring a note of realism into the question of what can or cannot be hoped for in this area.
Will the Minister make available copies of the report to each Deputy?
The report will be published shortly and if they are not sent to each Deputy, I will arrange that that be done.
39.
asked the Minister for Justice the general educational facilities that are available to adult prisoners; the number of personnel available for the provision of such facilities in (i) general education and (ii) remedial education; the qualifications of these teachers and the standard up to which they teach; and whether prisoners are helped in preparing for public examinations.
An education service is provided in the prisons by the appropriate vocational education committees. In Cork, however, the prison is being radically reconstructed and the work has not progressed sufficiently to enable the service to commence. Security requirements at Portlaoise preclude at present the operation of an educational service there.
When introducing the estimates for my Department for 1973-74 I outlined plans for the further expansion of the education services provided in the prisons and referred to the appointment of a co-ordinator of education. The co-ordinator has since been appointed and the programme of expansion has continued.
The programmes of education are designed to cater as far as possible for the individual needs of prisoners and include remedial education and general education. Serious difficulties arise because of the shortness of the average period of imprisonment and the constantly changing prison population. I have not heard it suggested, however, that the courts should impose longer sentences so as to enable people to be educated in prison. Despite the difficulties, it is possible to prepare some prisoners for public examinations, including the leaving certificate. Correspondence courses are made available in suitable cases and recorded language courses are also provided.
The teaching staff consists of teachers employed by the local vocational education committees and have qualifications acceptable to those bodies. A total of 15 teachers are employed in the prisons, 11 of these are engaged in general education and four are providing remedial education. These provide a service equivalent to nine whole-time teaching units and it is hoped to increase that to 13 whole-time units this year.
I might add that the educational service for juveniles, which is provided by 20 teachers—equivalent to 17½ whole-time units—in St. Patrick's, Shanganagh Castle and Loughan House, is even more comprehensive than that provided for adult prisoners and that, as indicated in my reply to another question on today's Order Paper, in addition to the education programmes, comprehensive programmes for industrial training are about to be implemented for both adults and juveniles.