Major changes on way in prison service

Major institutional and cultural change is planned for the prison service in a four-year strategy document which is to be launched tomorrow by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue.

Prison "corporate" policy has to date focused on "humane containment" and the new strategy is set to reflect a more nuanced approach, making rehabilitation a priority.

The detailed plan includes provision for a "regimes directorate" which will have responsibility for the development of rehabilitation programmes and is expected to have a major impact on the daily routines of prison inmates, particularly a much reduced lock-up time in closed prisons.

Linked to this is a new sentence management system in which the prison authorities will look at the release date of each prisoner.

"We will look at whether they have a literacy or a health problem, for example, or if they are a bricklayer or a carpenter and link them into what services we have in the system that best suit them while they are in prison," according to one of the prison service staff involved in the consultation process for the strategy.

A key aspect of the plan is the refurbishment programme and the intention to end "slopping out" within three years, ensuring that every prisoner has 24-hour access to toilet facilities.

The same target date has been set to end multiple cell occupancy, when the building programme for another 466 prison places is complete.

The strategy, for 2001-04, deals with EU-formulated prison rules on the humane treatment of prisoners and their human rights and aims to put the principal regulations in place.

The prison service runs on rules last changed in 1947 and universally acknowledged as out of date. A new set of prison rules, reflecting the EU stance, has been signed off by the prison service and the Department of Justice, and is currently being studied by the Attorney General's office.

The strategy document, which will be circulated to all prison officers in the service by the end of this week, follows a similar exercise in the courts service when a strategy plan was drawn up for it.

The prisons strategy is preceded by its own health strategy, launched last month. That focused on safe custody, respectful treatment and links with outside agencies involved in prisoners' health issues.

The plan comes at a time when the prison service is negotiating a phasing out of overtime, which is projected to cost £43 million this year, some 20 per cent of the prison service's budget.

It is hoped that negotiations will be completed within four months and follow a similar phasing out of overtime by the prison services in Northern Ireland and Britain.

Two years ago on his appointment as director of the prison service, Mr Seβn Aylward, said in an Irish Times interview that overtime was a "cancer in the prison system".

He described it as a "make or break" issue for the prison service, and said it was bad for morale and had a detrimental effect on prison officers' family life.

The strategy document is based on overtime being phased out, and as part of this plan 500 officers are currently being recruited.

Mr Aylward attended a conference last week on a National Economic and Social Forum report, which recommends that rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners in society should be the primary focus of the prison service. Some of its proposals are reflected in the strategy document.