Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280
- 299)
MONDAY 3 NOVEMBER 2003
MRS OLWEN
LYNER AND
MR PAT
CONWAY
Q280 Mr Clarke: Turning to the prisoners,
would you say in your view what the extent of overcrowding in
Maghaberry Prison is and how serous a problem you consider overcrowding
to be?
Mr Conway: I think it is a problem.
Obviously we could not specifically identify how many cells have
two prisoners, et cetera. I think it is probably more helpful
to look at the fact that we reckon there are 16 sub-groups within
the prison population. There are: ordinary remands; male and female;
sex offenders; asylum seekers; possibly three Loyalist organisations,
some of which are on remand and some are in sentence; and two
Republican organisations, some of which are on remand and some
are sentenced. We have vulnerable prisoners. We do not know of
any other prison regime in either GB or the Republic of Ireland
or, if you like, in Europe that has those sort of pressures existing
in one site. If you have overcrowding to start off with, then
you have these sub-groups that you have to manage and deal with
and that is going to be present huge problems for any prison management
system. I think that is as much as we want to say on that.
Q281 Mr Clarke: And yet your duty,
as you say, is to the ODC, the criminals. It has been suggested
that the disturbances themselves start with ordinary decent criminals
and the standard of care that they were being given. Post-separation,
we are going to have Bush and Roe Houses taken out of the equation
in order that they will be used for paramilitary prisoners. Does
that not suggest to you that pressure is going to increase for
those non-paramilitary inmates in terms of more doubling up? Surely,
if you take two of the large houses out and you have 1,000 ODCs,
if that is the term we can use, having to go into Lagan and the
rest, that is going to make overcrowding worse?
Mrs Lyner: There are 300 paramilitaries
housed in Maghaberry and, you are right, that may make it worse.
It ultimately depends, I suppose, on how many prisoners get through
the selection process to go into those houses. These are fit to
take 96 individuals. You want it to be something approaching those
numbers, but then that would create space in the system. There
may also be some options, if those houses were set up, to put
the ordinaries on some of the other landings. I think, rather
than focusing on the overcrowding issue which exists—originally
post-Good Friday we had all assumed and it was agreed that this
sort of level in the prison was going to be set at around1,200
but unfortunately that is not the case and so there is the pressure—the
most important thing is to get back to the normalised regime.
Crowding is part of the living regime, that is absolutely right,
but the day-time routine, the opportunities for people to take
part in positive activities, is really very critical. You may
have seen today exactly what is in operation and available for
prisoners to do. We only get feedback from people who come out
and come to us for services. I obviously cannot comment on that.
I think there is a level of inactivity that is not helpful for
the ordinaries at the moment. You are right that in the summer
that was one of the first more public manifestations of the fact
that things were going wrong; people were frustrated because,
having earned an enhanced regime, they were in their cells.
Q282 Mr Clarke: Do you think it is
as important to have the opportunity for that enhanced regime
for the separated prisoners?
Mrs Lyner: In an ideal world,
absolutely, but we do have to be conscious of resources as well.
I am assuming—and you probably have more information that
we have—that the way in which this process may ultimately
work is that those who declare themselves as unsafe in some way
to go through would be treated almost as vulnerable prisoners
and elect for a more selective regime. It is critically important,
and we go back to the focus on whether it is political motivation
or criminogenic, that these individuals get their needs assessed
and some response to basic skills, et cetera. It is going
to be more difficult in a situation where they are now servicing
people in a range of different locations.
Q283 Mr Clarke: What you have said
about it depending how the numbers stack up in terms of how you
delineate between the ordinary decent criminals and the paramilitaries
leads very nicely on to my question. You have said in your evidence
that there should be that distinction between scheduled and non-scheduled
prisoners. Would you like to say a little bit more about the way
you think that would help the situation in terms of having a very
tight distinction and delineation rather than a loose one?
Mr Conway: I think people were
quite surprised when we discovered that post-Steele it was still
the case that people could be sentenced, say for drug dealing
activity, and then could put their hands up within the prison
and say, "Actually, I want to be a Loyalist" or, "I
want to be a Republican". Their reason for being there somehow
transcends why they were sentenced. We would have to develop our
thinking a little bit in terms of the scheduled versus non-scheduled
debate. That is why at this stage we are talking about differentiating
between criminogenic and political. We know that is going to cause
difficulties for the general public, but again, it is a debate
that was not engaged in or explored during the signing of the
Good Friday Agreement at the time. I suppose our concern would
be that the critical mass that we talked about earlier would actually
increase quite dramatically and you would have a prison regime
that would be dominated ostensibly by individuals who would claim
that they were in prison ostensibly for political reasons or politically-motivated
reasons. I think that would not be accepted by most interested
parties.
Q284 Chairman: But that is not the
situation, is it? We heard today about a prisoner who is now separated,
who was convicted of a drugs offence but who had served life in
a previous incarnation—it is difficult to serve two life
sentences—in the Maze for what was clearly a political motivation:
he was a Republican who had committed gun-running or bombing or
whatever it was, and I did not ask the detail. We have two different
sorts: the scheduled and the non-scheduled. There is this guy
who was clearly a man with a Republican affiliation who happened
to have been convicted, as it were, as an ODC. How do you make
that difference?
Mrs Lyner: We are not wedded to
the notion of scheduled and non-scheduled. We are concerned that
it is not possible just for people to opt to go into separated
regimes because it is less demanding, that there is less focus
on trying to pursue a resettlement plan in some way that you opt
out of those programmes. Scheduled and non-scheduled may not stand
up to undue scrutiny, but the message or the point of view I am
trying to give is that unless we test in some way beyond just
my saying to you "I feel unsafe", we could quite quickly
end up with a prison system that is segregated just on sectarian
lines. Steele's Report says that is not the way we want to go.
In this situation we know that again the prison environment is
tense and that there is a lot of pressure and anger in all of
that. Prior to the situation at the start of the summer, one of
the issues in the Prison Service's own looking at what needed
to be addressed by them was the whole area of sectarianism before
we ever got to separated regimes. There are significant issues
there that we felt we needed to attempt to put some parameters
around. All we are is part of the policy community that feeds
in its best thoughts. The concern is to attempt to ensure that
we do not end up with a separated prison system that is just on
the basis of community background.
Q285 Mr Clarke: I think you are right
to ask the question and to raise the level of debate. I do have
the concern that as far as the Prison Service is concerned, the
answer to the question you raise may be caught up in the numbers
given in terms of: how do we make sure we use the number of cells
to the best ability, and yet for the prisoners we have a situation
already, recent history shows us, that was started not by hard
line paramilitaries but by those lower down the scale and indeed
by ordinary decent criminals who started the protests which were
piggy-backed by the political movements for their own purposes.
If we have a tight distinction of who should be separated, do
we not run the risk of simply repeating what we have seen over
the past few months, and that is that those who do not fit into
the category would simply protest as a way of achieving their
political status? If they are left out, they will say, "OK,
all we need to do is to get on to the roofs with the ordinary
decent criminals and cause a disturbance"?
Mrs Lyner: I think you have rightly
located one of the reasons, that the start of the protests was
actually in the ordinaries and how they felt that what they had
been offered and what was on offer to them was less. I do not
believe, and I am happy to stand corrected, that all the workshops
and training opportunities in Maghaberry are fully operational
at the moment. I think that if you have healthy and well-programmed
prisoners, you have less reason for people to be concerned. There
is an issue at the moment in terms of potential, and Steele recommended
this, that when we move to separate conditions, we will put remand
and sentence together. If people move into those situations, I
am not sure how the courts will be disposed to that when that
option comes forward. We must do everything to encourage people
at this stage to stay within the structure that is there and there
has to be some clear reason why they would move out of that. One
of the reasons that could attract prisoners is that the quality
of the regime they are being offered, the options that they are
being given, they can actually buy into. That is a big issue for
prison services everywhere, that you can sufficiently motivate
prisoners to engage in programmes that you feel actually will
have an impact on their offending behaviour when they are released.
People have to buy into that.
Q286 Mr Clarke: But it is a problem.
You say there are 17 different prison regimes?
Mrs Lyner: There are 16, but it
could be more.
Q287 Mr Clarke: The problem is in
trying to calculate how you break those 16 down into a workable
prison?
Mrs Lyner: Yes.
Q288 Mr Luke: We touched a bit on
this in the last exchange of question. Obviously disturbances
in the summer this year had an impact on the regime for ordinary
prisoners. I would like to go over your experiences. What does
this mean for the prisoners themselves and their state of mind
and how do they feel about the effect in their actual environment?
What are the knock-on consequences for their families?
Mr Conway: Certainly we would
commend the Prison Service on this move from purely a security
ethos to resettlement and obviously security as well; we think
that is very healthy. We have practical experience of working
partnerships with the Prison Service and the probation service
to deliver. We support the services both within and beyond the
prison, and we all notice the impact on the families. Our understanding
is that the inside prison programme the vocational and educational
opportunities have been severely restricted for the ordinaries.
Obviously there are not going to be individual resettlement structures
and resettlement programmes. They are all individually structured.
It is not a case, like it used to be, where all prisoners did
X activity and there was very little option. There is a greater
understanding within the Prison Service and generally that you
need to construct resettlement plans that reflect the needs of
the individual. Those plans obviously have been disrupted. As
part and parcel of that, our experience of the Prison Service
is that they have and are in the process of reaching out to engage
more with families and invite spouses into the prison to see what
the regime actually looks like, which helps to demystify what
goes on. We have had anecdotal experience or tales of spouses
coming out and saying, "I was led to believe that Johnny
was experiencing a really hard time and that is not the reality,
or it is not as hard as was portrayed". Similarly, the Prison
Service in Magilligan has engaged with us in terms of developing
the child-centred visiting, which hopefully we would like to see
introduced to Maghaberry, and so there has been significant movement
in the past five years in terms of what has been on offer. Obviously
there has been disruption in terms of the areas that I have mentioned,
plus family visits. That cannot be resettlement. Obviously the
families on the outside cannot be happy with what is going on
currently or what has been happening in the past six months.
Q289 Mr Luke: The impact of the disruption
must have caused your organisation with its aims and ethos quite
a deal of frustration. You say that there seems to be a restarting
of some of that work. Could you give us an idea about how far
that has progressed and what your hopes are for a fuller implementation
of resettlement programmes?
Mrs Lyner: It is positive that
the buses that we have on the road have actually been able to
deliver the people to visits without disruption over the last
couple of months, and so there is engagement, and engagement with
families is very important. If families buy into the resettlement,
we have a much better chance of actually getting a positive outcome
for individuals. I think that certainly there is an attempt on
behalf of the Prison Service, and particularly in Maghaberry,
to keep going with positive processes and we would want to support
all of that. On the other hand, in order not just to support processes
but actually to ensure that people have positive experiences,
it is important that we move to a situation where we address the
issues that Tony Clarke raised about the level of sickness and
absenteeism. It is very difficult to run something when 10% of
the staff are not there if you have issues and ongoing difficulties
in terms of your man management or person management in those
institutions. All of these issues need some resolution before
we are going to get to a situation where we can really be sure
that our resettlement agenda, which we have all contributed to
and are looking forward to launching this November, can become
a reality again.
Mr Conway: I would like to mention
also that there has been some impact in terms of crises or difficulties
in the environment. Our policy comment role has been questioned;
ie the partnership. We are in partnership with the Prison Service
and we are in partnership with the probation services, but as
an NGO sometimes we have to say things that other bodies find
uncomfortable and that creates its own tensions. We have had a
significant amount of experience of that in the past.
Q290 Mr Swire: Has the regime for
ordinary prisoners improved since the decision to separate the
paramilitaries was made?
Mrs Lyner: Not that would be particularly
evident yet, and that is obviously to do with the fact that, as
we mentioned earlier, we have people on different landings with
a degree of separation. The Prison Service is trying to refurbish
and make right the security arrangements for the future. I think
we are in transition in terms of managing this at the moment.
It is not our understanding, and I am happy to be corrected, that
the education and vocational opportunities are operating fully.
There may be, and I think there is, an amount of education happening
on individual landings with individuals, but it would not be seen
to be the type of scheme that would be best if individual prisoners
feel themselves picked out and noticed in terms of their basic
skills requirements in that environment. It is better if people
move out of living conditions to somewhere where they do their
day-time regime.
Q291 Mr Swire: How do ordinary prisoners
feel about the decision to separate the paramilitaries?
Mrs Lyner: That is not a discussion
that we have had with many ordinary prisoners. I think the big
issue for the families has been that we are back at least to something
where they feel that they can visit and connect, and that is very
important, and that the actual amount of incidents daily ongoing
which may have felt vulnerable to are obviously much less
Q292 Mr Swire: The Steele review
panel recommended that remand and sentenced prisoners should be
integrated as a means to improve efficiency. Can you support that
recommendation?
Mr Conway: At first sight, we
cannot really. That is the position. I think there is an issue
of contamination or potential contamination between remand and
sentence. It has been said that the courts could have something
to say about that. Really, as an organisation, we have not come
to a determination.
Q293 Mr Beggs: You appear to lack
confidence in the ability of the Prison Service to resource separation
effectively. What are your concerns?
Mrs Lyner: I certainly did not
mean to imply any particular lack of confidence in the resourcing
issue. There is undoubtedly a cost attached to separation. We
have heard what the cost would be described in various different
interviews. I have no idea what it would be. The Steele Review
set-up will feed in to the Secretary of State and resourcing is
likely to be behind that. I think the issue that we are concerned
about, moving on from the physical, whether it is CCTV and what
shape and size of the issues are, is the ability to be able to
create the environment which we have the person management to
resource. To me, that is something that requires not only the
staff of the organisation but the management to ensure that that
happens, because we do not have a healthy regime when we have
prisoners who are not active during the day.
Q294 Mr Beggs: What other consequences
do you perceive for the prison if the resources provided for separation
turn out to be inadequate?
Mrs Lyner: We have a continuing
revolving door process and we are managing to bring back in about
60% of those people who went through the door. If we are all committed
to reducing crime and thereby victimisation, it is critical that
we get back on focus the resettlement agenda and attack the things
that we know contribute to the breakdown and the criminal activity
of people going back on the outside. Having had a very difficult
25 years when we were bearing the brunt of looking after some
very difficult prisoners, there has been an opportunity to some
extent to create a new role in society for us in Northern Ireland
with a relatively small prison population. It is fortunate we
do not imprison that many people in Northern Ireland. It is important
that we get the models right. The Northern Ireland Prison Sevice
Resettlement document is a quality document.
Mr Conway: It is important also
to emphasise that resources are financial and physical and there
is obviously a cost to them and then there are the human resources
and the mind-set of staff, the ethos in any establishment. We
do think that ultimately consideration should be given to a differentiated
skill level and that when we move on from this and hopefully come
out of it positively, it will not look as though everybody is
being paid the same amount of money, as currently happens, to
do different jobs. There might be individuals involved in a fairly
sophisticated resettlement strategy who would have to have very
good social skills and be highly educated. I think that is something
that in future needs to be discussed but the human resources should
not be underestimated because really that is where the solution
lies. The rest of it is bricks and mortar, the fabric.
Q295 Mr Beggs: You suggest that the
Prison Service might learn from other jurisdictions about how
to handle this type of situation and you specifically mentioned
Port Laoise Prison. What lessons do you think could be derived
from the Port Laoise experience?
Mrs Lyner: I have not had the
opportunity to visit Port Laoise. What we hear from the groups
that are supporting those that are there is that they are managing
to contain three different Republican groups within that prison
without undue disruption to the rest of the regime. We do know
that we have more groups and we are a much more charged local
community in relation to all of that, but I think it is always
useful to look at what others are doing. We are involved this
week in a transnational visit with people coming in from Finland,
Greece and wherever else. That is not the same but there is still
plenty to learn. I think if they have managed to contain that
situation, it would be useful to see how they have constructed
that so that it is workable.
Q296 Mr Beggs: Outside what you hope
to learn from the visiting group currently, have you any other
examples from other jurisdictions that you can provide to the
Committee?
Mrs Lyner: Towards the end of
the summer we had a visit from the Singapore Police who came to
visit Northern Ireland to meet a number of people who are very
active in the Prison Service. The Singapore Police are wondering
how they are going to hold something like 25 Al-Quaeda. They felt
that what had happened in Northern Ireland appeared to have been
a very good experience. They were interested in transporting that
to Singapore—maybe not!
Mr Conway: Possibly an area that
is worth exploration is the Balkans, which must have a similar
situation. It will not be an exact replica but we have no idea
what that looks like. I think, in terms of the exploration, what
we are saying is that rather than continuously looking inwards—and
we do not believe we do that—it would be useful to look
at scenarios that are similar to our own and perhaps there is
an example in that particular region.
Q297 Mr Clarke: If you look at the
list of prisoner privileges, visits will probably be at the top.
Some of us feel that the decision to separate has been rushed
and yet we find today with Steele post-separation that prisoners
will be separated in different wings by different factions but
when it comes to visits at Maghaberry, they all sit in the same
room around the same tables within touching distance of each other
with no problems. Have you got a comment on that in terms of it
being all right for prisoners not to be separated when they are
receiving visits? Why should they be separated in other aspect
of their prison life?
Mr Conway: I think prisoners and
prison staff are ultimately pragmatic.
Q298 Mr Clarke: And could be pragmatic
if forced to be in other ways?
Mr Conway: Yes.
Q299 Chairman: It is interesting
that Mr Clarke has just raised this because in the draft compact
that is being prepared, which is the terms and conditions of being
separated, it is suggested that integrated visiting will end.
How will that impact on what you call your buses? Will most families
welcome it?
Mrs Lyner: No, it will be yet
another difficulty in relation to that; undoubtedly it will be.
We will have to look at that. If we go back some very many years—
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