Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of witnesses (Questions 340 - 349)

WEDNESDAY 15 JULY 1998

MR BRIAN GORMALLY and MS JAQUELINE IRWIN

  340.  I think the point I also had in mind was whether, in the light of your experience and understanding, among the ODCs with in particular longer sentences a manifestation of resentment, a form of "sense of injustice", is going to complicate the administering of prisoners and whether that would make the task of the Prison Service that much harder?
  (Mr Gormally)  I do not think so really. In spite of the fact that it is a matter of great political debate, I do not think anyone in Northern Ireland makes any real bones about there being a clear distinction between politically motivated prisoners and ordinaries. Of course there may be individual grey cases but in terms of somebody who is convicted of, I do not know, domestic violence, burglary, or something of that character, I do not think in any sense they see themselves as being in the same category as those who have been involved in political violence. In that sense, I do not think, although individuals may, on the whole ordinaries compare themselves with politicals. There may be issues around conditions, e.g. if it were the case that politically motivated prisoners were getting better conditions or better regimes than others, but that has not been the case and to my knowledge it has never been raised as an issue. So I really do not think there is going to be a problem in that respect.

Mr Browne

  341.  My first questions leads on from the reference to sex offenders by my colleague. I was struck, I have to say, by the paucity of any observations in your report about sex offenders and more so given your reference to the number of them that there are in the system. When we visited the prisons of Northern Ireland one of the things that we noted was that sex offenders were not segregated, whereas I think in all the other prison systems in Britain and the United Kingdom sex offenders are segregated and that is the norm. Are there problems arising from that policy of non-segregation in your experience?
  (Mr Gormally)  There have been problems with sex offenders, assaults on sex offenders and so on from time to time. It is a moot point whether that arises from a policy of non-segregation because even where sex offenders are segregated it is never perfect and there are very often assaults on them. I am sure that would be characteristic of the British system where the process of segregation breaks down. The Prison Service so far has made a judgment that segregation puts a great deal of pressure on the individuals, it is more difficult to manage it in many ways, it denormalises the regime and therefore it is to be avoided unless it is absolutely necessary. They have come to the conclusion so far that the situation is handle-able without segregation. I do not think that we can particularly second-guess that, but we are of the opinion that the safety of prisoners has to be the first priority. So if it became clear that there were many serious assaults, for example, on sex offenders by other offenders then that would make a case for segregation.

  342.  Have you done any research or assessment of the quality of life for sex offenders within the Northern Ireland prison system?
  (Mr Gormally)  I have done no organised research on that, no.

  343.  Have you made any personal observations of the quality of life for sex offenders within the Northern Ireland Prison Service?
  (Mr Gormally)  I do not think the quality of life for sex offenders in any prison is going to be very high. Having said that, for example, at Maghaberry they have access to vocational training and work and education. That might be at threat under segregated conditions. I would not have thought that their situation was worse in the Northern Ireland situation, but I have to say that to my knowledge no organised research on that has been done.

  344.  It does seem to me that if the Northern Ireland prison system, as they have in a sense claimed in evidence to us, are able to integrate sex offenders without an inappreciable depreciation in the quality of life for those prisoners then they have found a part of an answer to a problem that has bedeviled the prison system in the United Kingdom. I wonder if you would like to comment on that.
  (Ms Irwin)  I think they may have found the answer to part of a problem. I think our organisation's interested in the matter has been less, maybe to a fault, to do with the arrangements for their security in large part than it has to do with what happens to these people once they move back out into society again. So the issues for us have been more to do with what sort of attempt there is to handle their offending behaviour, the particular characteristics of that offending behaviour for organisations such as ours once they move back out into the community again.
  (Mr Gormally)  There is just one perhaps minor aspect and that is, for example, in Maghaberry there is a significant leavening of politically motivated prisoners who are disaffiliated on the whole from their organisations. Nonetheless, amongst politically motivated offenders attacking sex offenders would be seen to be the kind of behaviour that ordinaries go in for and therefore would not be seen to be proper for them. So there may be a somewhat different attitude than might be found in a general prison in England. I do not know whether that is the case, but there is anecdotal evidence, and politically motivated prisoners will put that view to you.

  345.  Can I move on to another type of prisoner who is within the prison system in Northern Ireland and the type of prisoner that you do comment on in your report at paragraph 4.4.2. When we visited Maghaberry Prison there was a 15-year old child accommodated in the women's prison there and she was indeed, as I understand it, the only child that was accommodated within the prison system and may still be the only child to be accommodated within the prison system. I have to say that I was shocked by that. The best explanation I could get was that she was only one and therefore there was no reason to have special accommodation for the small numbers. You make the suggestion in your paper to us that the idea of non-custodial and intensive supervision in the community for such types of prisoners should be developed. Could you expand on that, please?
  (Mr Gormally)  Obviously the number of women in the system in general is small and a fairly high proportion are politically motivated. The number of young women who either receive a prison sentence or, as in that particular case, for example, are passed on from a training school system for being unruly, a danger to themselves or to others, or who are held even in relatively secure conditions in the training school system, is small. The cost of putting them in a cell with all the staff involved and the expense and so on would be so high that you might as well supervise them 24 hours a day in the community or at least in residential care that was specially designed and was secured simply by the number of staff who were there, if necessary, to control the individual. The logic of the system says that we do not have a female YOC so what we will do is we will call a bit of the female prison a YOC and when we have this very tiny number of really crazy kids they will end up there, but if you look laterally at the situation, why not keep them in the community or at least in residential care where they can be cared for in an intensive way 24 hours a day, if that is what it takes?

  346.  Other than in a general sense, have you given any more thought to this recommendation? Could you explain how it would work in practice, and how would such a wild child be contained within the community and not damage herself or others?
  (Mr Gormally)  When I say in the community, obviously we are not talking here about the family home. One is assuming that the difficulties are such that the child is unlikely to be in a stable and caring home environment. It may be possible to look at fostering in these circumstances, but I think it would be very difficult. One suggestion could be the close supervision unit at Shamrock House in Rathgael which is on the care side of the training school system. It is locked but its security is based on close supervision by a very high ratio of staff to kids. If you are dealing with just one or two a year in a particular category, I see no particular reason why a house at Rathgael or somewhere else, maybe Lisnevin, could not be adapted with all the physical security which would be necessary—and obviously if it is as bad as that with safe rooms and so on—but with a very high level of supervision. Whether that needs to be in the prison estate, whether the training school system could deal with it or whether the probation service would be the best, I do not think really matters. It is a practical point. Something like that is just as practical and reasonable as putting a child in an adult prison.

Mr Beggs

  347.  Good afternoon. In your submission you indicate that NIACRO believes very strongly that remand and sentenced prisoners should be held separately. Was it a mistake to close Belfast Prison?
  (Mr Gormally)  No, I think not. First of all, the conditions in Belfast Prison were bad, physically. It is a 19th century prison, as you know, of the classic design, not suitable for the holding of a remand population the greater part of which at any given time would have been politically motivated. The difficulty of segregating factions from each other in Crumlin Road I think was demonstrable and although it may not seem to be the best system or the best answer in an ideal world we thought the closure of Crumlin Road was the correct thing to do, and that the moving of the remand prisoners to the Maze, where of course on the whole remand prisoners are kept separate from convicted prisoners, was the right thing to do. They are in the same prison but not mixing.

  348.  You also say that the innovative use of bail support schemes could mean a reduced remand population. Would you like to comment further on that?
  (Mr Gormally)  When we are talking about ordinary prisoners one of the reasons for bail being refused is that they are homeless or that they are not perhaps dangerous in any absolute sense but their lifestyle is such that some degree of control might be felt to be appropriate in a remand period, so they are at less risk of committing further offences or of absconding. In those circumstances it is not always necessary that custody is the answer. Sometimes custody is used because of lack of information, so bail information schemes are one form of bail support where accurate information is got to the custody court on the morning when the bail decision is being taken. That is one thing. Secondly, bail hostels and other forms of supervision while on bail are appropriate. Our view is that custody is bad for the taxpayer and bad for the prisoner and the extent to which it can be reduced with safety is always going to be positive. So bail support in terms of bail hostels, bail information schemes and various possible forms of supervision, and other things like education and training packages which can be put together while people are on bail, are positive alternatives to custody for those prisoners who are not actually a positive danger to themselves or anybody else.

Mr Donaldson

  349.  You are very welcome to the Committee. In your submission to the Committee you talked about the need to reform and modernise the Prison Service in the wake of the Belfast Agreement. You will be aware that in Northern Ireland there is a substantial number of cases outstanding in respect of criminal offences committed by terrorist organisations for which individuals have not yet been brought to justice and subsequently imprisoned. Whilst under the provisions of the Belfast Agreement there will be an accelerated release of prisoners, it is still possible for the foreseeable future that if offenders are apprehended there could be a significant prison population belonging to the various paramilitary and terrorist organisations. I know that NIACRO has made the suggestion or flagged up the possibility of considering an amnesty in respect of offences committed up to the point of the signing of the Belfast Agreement. Obviously if such an amnesty were introduced it would have a significant impact on the Prison Service insofar as the expectation that we will have more or a continuing population of paramilitary prisoners will be reduced if not eventually eradicated; one assumes there will be some degree of paramilitary activity. Would you like to tell the Committee a little bit about the thought processes which have brought NIACRO to the point where they feel an amnesty for scheduled offences should be introduced in the wake of the Belfast Agreement?
  (Mr Gormally)  First of all, my understanding of the Sentences Bill is that where prosecution, trial and sentence take place in the future for crimes already committed before April 10th, there will be a sentence but the people will be released two years after that. So accelerated release as such will still apply to people who are processed in that manner. I think that is an important thing to note. In terms of what we have called an amnesty, the way in which we have seen this is as being unconnected with the issue of prisoner release. We have never argued for an amnesty in that context. We have argued that the peace process demanded an element of accelerated release, but we have seen amnesty in terms of a community reconciling itself with itself. We posited this as being something which down the road is a process which may help the question of re-integration of ex-prisoners into society and may help victims of a range of violence to come to terms with that. We very strongly said that the kind of process we would like to examine—and this is simply a suggestion for debate—would be not necessarily exactly like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa but embodying some of those themes, where victims have the opportunity to tell their story. Even if it is only a question of reading into the formal record what has happened to them in the conflict, that is more than they have had the opportunity to do at the present time, and of course that would apply to victims of all violence. Secondly, it might be possible to avoid what could be seen as the absurdity of a continuing cause of community disharmony where the police are still looking for people many years hence for offences committed many years ago, where trials are taking place, sentences being given, which are nominal because people are going to be released anyway in two years. If that process is to continue ad infinitum it may be worth considering an alternative to that whereby people can, on the basis of disclosure, apply for immunity from prosecution. Where people have already been convicted, we have got to understand that the reality is that those people will have and do have criminal convictions which can be a difficulty in all kind of areas, employment, insurance and so on and this would be a way of wiping the slate clean from that point of view and would demonstrate that society was prepared to fully receive people into it who had been involved in political violence. Our argument is that reintegration is a two-way process. It is not just about ex-prisoners changing, it is also about society changing. We are thinking about it two or three years down the road. When society is ready to go for more radical forms of healing than it has so far then this maybe an idea worth considering.

Mr Donaldson:  Reform and modernization of the Prison Service. Assuming we continue to have over a period of time a prison population where there is an element of prisoners connected to terrorist associations, have you any proposals to make in respect of how that could be developed or changed in terms of the way that it is managed at the moment?

Chairman:  There is a Division in the House and Mr Donaldson has kindly indicated to me that, as the Committee has to attend the division, he will not expect a reply to his last question. Therefore, may I on behalf of the Committee thank you for the evidence you have given us today and, although the meeting has been curtailed, if you wish to gloss or submit further evidence to your answers, please do not hesitate to do that. Thank you very much indeed.


 
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