PRISON SYSTEM MUST BE REFORMED

'IF YOU have them coming out of prison as good as they were going in, you
will have done well.' That was the advice given to me in July 1972 by a
Franciscan who had been chaplain to the prison in Trent for twenty years.

Twenty-six years later little has changed. Our prison system is not
deterring young offenders. The advantage of punishing and putting people
away temporarily is being offset when we send prisoners out more dangerous
and frustrated than when they went in.

I believe that if we don't change the emphasis from length of time served
in prison to the use of time in prison we are missing a great opportunity
for change and rehabilitation. This presupposes that we believe that the
prisoners are capable of changing for the better and that we are prepared
to make the efforts necessary for this change. But we owe it to potential
victims, to the families of prisoners and ultimately to ourselves, because
the way we treat people deeply forms the kind of people they become.

To ignore potential for good is to embark on a pathway to eventual
destruction where the criminal gets worse and we hold out no hope to them
of change. We too become shrunken, closed, despairing or indifferent. If we
form the habit of treating any category of people as lesser humans,
regardless of who they are, what they have done or where they have come
from, then it is more likely that we will develop a similar attitude to
other groups of people in time.

Each generation has the resources and the challenge to be more civilised in
its way of handling criminals. Our blindness or indifferent neglect could
be the cornerstone for the next century's scandal. Alternatively our change
of attitude could rescue some criminal families from becoming part of the
cycle of crime.

Most countries will have statistics on how many prisoners escaped, how many
were given parole and failed to return, and how many died while in prison.
But not so readily available are statistics on people who changed for the
better or worse while in prison.

What happened to their families while they were in prison? How did they
readjust when they were released? The emphasis has been on ''Where are they
parked?'' rather than on what is happening to them and their families while
they were ''parked''. The type of information which we have on file is a
good indicator of why our system is failing. Do we consider it important to
know if prison is changing people for the better?

Reports on each prisoner's background and circumstances should be prepared
and used to devise a prison programme for each individual. Prisoners
serving long sentences ought to have a programme of personal development,
education, work and work skills mapped out with them from early on in their
prison term. Their progress and achievements should be rewarded.

Prisoners need encouragement to see their behaviour as relevant at all
times to the duration of their life in prison. Mandatory sentencing kills
motivation. Life sentences present a particular problem in that there is no
date on the door. This creates a limbo and a sense of destructive
uncertainty in the prisoner's life, destroying all hope and diminishing the
potential for self-improvement. I believe that in all cases recommended
term sentences should apply and these should be open to review at an early
stage.

SENTENCING

An appointed independent body not subject to ministerial sanction, except
where the security of the state or common good demands it, best operates
sentence reviews. It is not desirable that the Minister should feel
vulnerable from disgruntled prisoners or that he/she should be at the mercy
of public and political reaction when taking decisions about the lives of
individual people.

The profile of the average prisoner shows that he/she is there because of a
lack of life skills. Constructive use of time in prison ie education, work
and productivity skills, personal development and therapeutic courses
should always be available, and should always carry the possibility of
reward. For example, remission bonus time, bonus visits and other
privileges if earned can motivate prisoners to rise above mindless drifting.

This approach will have implications for prison timetables. Education and
work programmes need to run at weekends and right through 'holiday periods'
that are enjoyed on the 'outside'. Gradually people will begin to ask
''What is X doing with his/her time in prison?'' rather than ''How long are
they serving or what are they 'in' for?''

Re-entry to the community after imprisonment can be traumatic. So traumatic
that many prisoners cause trouble in prison just before release because
they are so afraid of readjustment. ''Will my wife or girlfriend be there
for me?'' ''Will my children want to know me?'' ''Will I feel useless,
branded and have I a future?'' These are real fears.

If they can be addressed in prisons then perhaps the person, when released
will be less likely to fall into the cycle of frustration anger,
re-offending, reimprisonment. We have to break this revolving door syndrome
and show that prison instead can be a door to a new way of life. This is
not impossible. It just has not been tried with enough conviction.

Supportive re-entry of ex-prisoners also demands community understanding.
The public would benefit from education on the culture of crime, the
effects of imprisonment on husbands, wives, partners, children and extended
family and the very real potential for personal rehabilitation. Befriending
of prisoners' families as well as special support for prisoners' children
are as State and community responsibility.

There are dangerous people in prison, for whom crime and violence is a way
of life, although the vast majority of prisoners do not fit into this
category. The question of re-entry to the community simply cannot arise for
dangerous prisoners in the short term, and never without intensive and
well-resourced punitive and rehabilitative measures.

One of the greatest ways for a prisoners to realise what they have done is
to see the impact on their victims. A robbery becomes not just one more
robbery when a prisoner sees the destruction and trauma that has been
caused. Recovery programmes that enable victims and offenders to ''stand in
each other's shoes'' are mutually healing in the long term.

Coverage of criminal trials by the media requires reflection on the parts
of policy makers and of media practitioners. Unbridled dramatic reporting
of criminal trials may generate a public appetite for gruesome details,
which may be upsetting for victims. This leads to a dulling of people's
horror at wrongdoing and maybe even a dulling of their moral sense.

FOR ALL Ireland's much vaunted liberalisation our society is taking a sharp
turn to the right where crime and crime prevention are concerned. This
needs to stop before we embrace seriously counter productive solutions to
our crime problem.

Christianity offers us the vision of reverence for all human life because
each of us is 'a temple of the Holy Spirit'. It is in our interest to show
the same reverence to all people, right throughout their lives, even where
the Holy Spirit may not appear to be dwelling in first class accommodation.

* Dr Eamonn Walsh is an Auxiliary Bishop in Dublin Archdiocese. He was
chaplain at Mountjoy Women's Prison and Arbour Hill Prison from 1972-1985.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan