DRUG COUNSELLORS TO HELP WOMEN PRISONERS URGED

There is a pressing need for drug counsellors and education programmes to
help women prisoners, a Mountjoy prison doctor told the weekend conference
in Dublin organised by the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT).

Dr Patricia Carmody said a survey of 100 women sent to prison in 1996 found
that 60 were heroin addicts and 34 had attempted to commit suicide. In all,
26 of the prisoners surveyed had had psychiatric admissions in the past,
with nine of them having been admitted more than five times. Of the 35
female prisoners who had been tested for HIV, 13 tested positive, while 22
of 36 women tested for Hepatitis C tested positive for that condition.
Among the 42 women tested for Hepatitis B, 12 were positive.

Dr Carmody said the design of the new prison building for women at Mountjoy
would facilitate drug detoxification and other programmes, because it
allowed for the segregation of prisoners.

"There are quite a lot of women who need to be separated from a small group
of addicts who can be very domineering and bully other prisoners. The
design of the new building will allow us to develop a drug-free unit which
is very important for methadone maintenance programmes."

However, to make rehabilitation work, prison medical and counselling staff
"need to know when a woman will be released, which is impossible at the
moment because of overcrowding and reoffending".

Dr Carmody said there was a need for women prisoners to have more structure
to their day and for more education programmes and physical activities.
There was also a pressing need for drug counsellors if drug-free units in
the new prison were to work.

She said she and her colleagues had made clear what they needed if the new
women's prison was to effectively rehabilitate prisoners. "Now we have to
see whether we can get what we need from the Department of Justice," she
concluded.

Mountjoy Women's Prison has been without a full-time welfare officer since
February of this year. The IPRT called at the weekend for the immediate
allocation of two probation and welfare officers to the prison and the
establishment of a high-support hostel for women leaving prison. They also
recommend that all female prisoners in Limerick be transferred to the new
women's prison at Mountjoy when completed.

In July 1998, there were 53 women in Mountjoy prison and nine in Limerick,
according to the organisers of the conference. An additional 52 women were
serving out their sentences on temporary release, according to their figures.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski