JAILS BECOMING 'UNIVERSITIES OF CRIME' FOR YOUTH

GOVERNMENT policies to radically curb the crime rate will fail in the long
term unless juveniles are targeted as the top priority.

That warning was delivered yesterday by the country's prison officers who
said current policies were turning juvenile offenders into the crime lords
of the future.

Successive political regimes were accused of failing to implement specific
measures to tackle juvenile crime, although there were now 730 offenders
between the ages of 15 and 21 in the prison system.

The attack on official policy was made by the Prison Officers Association
which warned that today's young offenders were tomorrow's crime bosses and
drug barons.

Jail staff union leader Ray Murphy declared there was no difference between
detention and imprisonment in this country. He asked the POA annual
conference in Killarney: "Has the prison system simply given up the
rehabilitation objective or are we simply in the business of containment?"

Mr Murphy, the union's assistant general secretary, said prisons were never
intended to be universities of crime where young people gained their
criminal education.

He pointed out it was impossible to distinguish between the regime in St
Patrick's Institution, the only male juvenile detention centre, and Mountjoy
or Cork prisons.

Figures released by Mr Murphy showed there were 730 young offenders in
custody and of these 419 were aged between 15 and 19.

While almost 200 juveniles were held in St Patrick's, others were also
distributed between Mountjoy, Arbour Hill, the Training Unit, Shanganagh
Castle, Shelton Abbey, Cork, Portlaoise, Limerick, Loughan House, Fort
Mitchel and Wheatfield.

Nine years ago Wheatfield had been built and intended as a new approach to
juvenile offenders. Now it was a general prison housing all types of
offenders because of overcrowding.

The POA also revealed a blueprint to combat violence in jails, through the
introduction of an effective prisoner classification system.

It says potentially violent prisoners should be identified as quickly as
possible and segregated.

Details of the plan were outlined by union vice president Derek Murphy who
said a specific anti-violence policy was urgently needed.

Meanwhile, he claimed that prompt action by staff had prevented a leap in
the number of deaths in prison.

Mr Murphy said committals had increased from 6,406 in 1990 to 11,620 last
year, many of whom had psychiatric problems.

"It is only by the swift and prompt action of prison staff that there are
not many more deaths in custody and all credit must go to staff for their
work in this area," he said.

* An interim board to take over the running of the prison service from the
Department of Justice is to be set up shortly. But representation for staff
on local management bodies has been ruled out by Justice Minister John
O'Donoghue, who promised them they would be consulted at all stages.

Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"