APPENDIX 16
Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Northern Ireland Prison Service
Thank you for your letter seeking additional
information to the oral evidence given by me on 29 October and
on other matters which have arisen through the Committee's visit
to Maghaberry and discussions with other parties.
I will address the issues in the order you raised
them.
STAFF MATTERS
1. The trigger points at which line management
may consider an informal (first written) warning are four absences
or 10 working days in a rolling 12-month period or six absences
or 15 days in a rolling 24-month period. A formal warning will
be considered should attendance not improve after the issue of
an informal warning.
2. A monthly breakdown of the number of
assaults on staff within Maghaberry prison during the last 24
months is set out in Annex A.
3. (a) (i) and (b) (i)
Statistics for the number of assaults on both
Maghaberry staff and staff from other NI establishments, or their
families, within their homes are attached at Annex B.
3. (a) (ii) and (b) (ii)
There have been no assaults on prison officers
on their way to work.
4. During this 24-month period, a total
of 245 Maghaberry staff have moved with the benefit of the Assisted
Home Removal Scheme.
PREPARATIONS FOR
SEPARATION
5. A contingency plan, in the sense of emergency
procedures to be activated if certain events occurred, did not
exist prior to the conduct of the Steele Review. A study had,
however, been carried out into the tactics used by Maze prisoners
and their supporters to achieve segregation. Following the closure
of Maze this study was used to benchmark the activities of paramilitary
prisoners, whom it was believed, would press for similar conditions
in Maghaberry.
A steering group was established, comprising
the Director of Operations, the Governor of Maghaberry and others,
to monitor the activities of prisoners with paramilitary affiliations.
The Maze study was used as the primary tool for understanding
and interpreting these activities in relation to the prisoners'
goal of achieving segregation. Importantly the steering group
directed management's attention and energy towards emerging areas
of weakness and to rectify them. The success was that it enabled
Maghaberry to prevent demands for segregation being realised for
around three years. It also meant that when prisoners did start
protesting Maghaberry was ready for them—in the end it was
external rather than internal pressures that led to the Steele
Review.
6. From the 1970s onwards a system known
as "forced integration" or "self-segregation"
began to operate in Belfast prison.
Self-segregation developed as the opposing paramilitary
factions could not or would not live peacefully together. As a
consequence of the dirty protest and hunger strikes they always
aspired to political status and wished to have what the Maze eventually
had which was factionalised wings where they could control their
own affairs.
Self-segregation was a regime agreed between
Republicans and Loyalists and the policy operated along the lines
of alternate cells being either Republican or Loyalist.
The wings that housed these paramilitaries were
staff intensive and a rigid controlled movement policy operated.
Normally if several prisoners from one faction were out on the
landing, the opposing faction was locked.
Both sides shared all the facilities—dining/association
room and exercise yard but used them at different times. For example,
if the Republicans were in the exercise yard in the morning, the
Loyalists remained locked. The situation was reversed in the afternoon,
and then again for the evening association.
In 1991, a bomb was detonated in the dining
room, killing 2 Loyalists and injuring a further seven. The subsequent
report by Lord Colville endorsed the Government's policy of resisting
segregation. The self-segregation arrangement ended in July 1994
when Loyalist prisoners rendered "A" and "B"
wings incapable of housing high security prisoners by severely
damaging the cell infrastructure. Within 24 hours the prisoners
were moved to Maze prison.
The experience at Belfast was not a critical
factor when initially looking at separation in Maghaberry. However,
local management at Maghaberry have kept the Belfast regime in
mind during development of regime and staffing arrangements and
commencement of physical works, as the controlled regime in Belfast
was effective, and it was only the physical structure of the prison
that proved unsuitable.
DETERMINATIONS ON
SEPARATION
7. As a temporary measure a number of Republican
and Loyalist prisoners have moved to a wing-based regime. The
protesting Republican prisoners were moved because they said they
felt unsafe within the integrated regime. The Loyalist prisoners
were transferred following the consideration of their offence,
affiliation and paramilitary profile. They were subsequently interviewed
and those deemed to have a high paramilitary profile and to be
at risk were selected to move to the wing-based regime.
8. The existing process for requesting evidence
from the PSNI about individual paramilitary affiliations is that
the Security Department at Maghaberry Prison liaises with the
collator at Musgrave Street PSNI, normally once a week, and with
Special Branch, Lisburn PSNI. On average this process takes two
to three weeks.
9. To date there have been six requests
from four Real IRA, one UFF and one UDA to transfer to the separated
regime at Maghaberry. All six prisoners have been transferred.
10. There will not be any appeal mechanism
against a Prison Service determination.
11. The Prison Service will not recognise
any authority of "officers commanding" under the new
regime.
2 December 2003
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