Just increasing the prison population will not reduce the level of crime, and all the debates on crime concentrate on the number of prison places. Of course we must deal with overcrowding but at present, apart from keeping those involved in crime out of circulation for a while, there is little to show that those in prison are any more improved when they are released than they were when they were incarcerated. Many of them are worse off because when they are released they have become drug addicts and they become involved in more crime to feed their habit. This puts even greater pressure on the prison service.
I am not saying that we do not need prisons, of course we do. There are many dangerous men in prison who have committed vicious crimes, but perhaps we could deal with many of those in prison in an alternative manner by imposing alternative sanctions. I can vouch for the fact that Castlerea Prison is now open because I was interested to see that a person who was fined £39,000 for possession and use of angledust opted for a month in Castlerea rather than pay the fine. That is quite a useful way of avoiding the fine.
There are a large number of petty criminals who are involved in larceny and burglary and, in the main, they are drug addicts. While we are not addressing the problem of drug addition either inside or outside the prisons more aggressively, we really cannot say that spending £45,000 a year on keeping these people in prison is in any way useful economically, whatever it may do for them socially. Even victims are virtually no better off from this because they are well aware that when the prisoner is released they will be in much the same situation as when they were imprisoned and only too ready to go back to their old lifestyle. There is the difficulty, of course, either within or outside prison that those who are on drugs must want to give them up.
As a patron of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, I welcome the proposed new prisons' board and it is vital that it is seen to be truly independent. The lack of management within prisons has been lamentable for decades and nobody, least of all the Governor of Mountjoy, wants to see the system of unstructured temporary release carry on as it is, nor do we want to see people being transported around the country in prison vans. However, we must reach a situation where there is a management structure and, as Senator Neville said, planning within the service so that there is some notion of where we stand. The board should be accountable only to the Minister; but it must be in a position, through a chief executive officer and a management team, to run the prison service from day to day, and I await with interest the result of the deliberations of the expert group on this. The need to strengthen the visiting committees is as essential and, as I have asked in this House before, there is a need for an inspector for the whole service.
Prison overcrowding undoubtedly exists. Apart from those who could be dealt with by the Probation Service, what about the 60-70 people in Mountjoy Prison who, it is recognised, have psychiatric disease. These people should not be in prison. That is not an institution for treating people with psychiatric disease even though psychiatrists do visit the prisons and it is recognised that the amount of psychiatric care there is inadequate. These people would probably not have run into trouble with the law or broken it if they had been receiving adequate psychiatric care. While we all naturally applaud the opening of the psychiatric hospitals so that there is more treatment within the community, I would be grateful if the Minister for Justice would talk to the Minister for Health about expanding the amount of money which is being given to the psychiatric community services, because a very large number of people are not receiving adequate care and they need an enormous amount of supervision. It is certainly more expensive than locking people up in prison; and if the two Ministers cannot manage to run the treatment of psychiatric patients outside psychiatric hospital, it would be better to return them to hospital. Why are these patients not being transferred to the Central Mental Hospital? That is where they should have been sent in the first place. They should not be in prison.
When I was a member of the Eastern Health Board about ten years ago a new facility was built at the Central Mental Hospital. As far as I can see, all that has gone on over the years is a discussion as to whether it should be used as a women's prison or a place for drug addicts. The last I heard of it, mattresses where being stored in this very beautiful little building. Is this still the case because I do not think that should be happening?
Another thing the board tried to do when I was a member was to transfer some of those patients who are no longer a danger to their communities back to psychiatric hospitals in their localities where at least they would be in contact with their relations and friends. The Minister for Justice should ask the Minister for Health to look into that also.
Senator Neville, who has always taken such an interest in prison suicide, has raised this matter and I want to speak briefly about it. The incidence of suicide in young men is rising in the community and this is something we must watch because we cannot but expect that what happens in prison will reflect what happens in society in general. The fact that remand prisoners appear to be particularly at risk has always been of great concern to me and I would ask the Minister to note that carefully.
Especially in view of what Senator Fahey said and put so splendidly, I am glad that the Children Bill is before the Dáil today because most prisoners admit that they first became involved in crime when they were children. I received a letter at Christmas from an 80 year old women and it was really quite appalling. She spoke about break-ins in the sheltered housing area where she lives and she said it was really dreadful to see children between the ages of six and eight so out of control. We must give more support to programmes like the Minister for Education's "Breaking the Cycle". The vast majority of people in Mountjoy Prison have not completed primary education. Nobody should have to go to prison to complete primary education. Most criminals come from large families so there should be support for their families and liaison between the school and the various organisations. Therefore, I ask the Minister to address more than just the building of prison accommodation when addressing crime.
