Prison gratuity scheme revised

The Irish Prison Service is to introduce a new gratuity regime to financially reward inmates for good behaviour while penalising those who are disruptive or refuse to engage with rehabilitative services.

The scheme centres on the €2.35 daily allowance that all inmates are entitled to at present. The prison authorities are now anxious to use that as leverage to make prisoners more compliant and to get them to engage more meaningfully with drug treatment, education and other services.

The project is being introduced as part of a range of new reform measures by the new director general of the Irish Prison Service Michael Donnellan.

Under the current system, all prisoners receive a daily allowance to buy supplies while they are in prison. All inmates are entitled to the gratuity and it does not have to be earned.

However, a three tier system of payments is now being introduced under prisoners can earn more money or lose some.

Every prisoner in the system will be paid a flat rate of €1.70 per day. They can increase that to €2.20 per day if they are compliant and do not break any prison regulations. For those who work with the prison – in cleaning or maintenance duties – an additional €1 will be paid, bringing their daily allowance to €3.20 per day.

A prisoner’s eligibility to be placed on the enhanced scheme will also be judged on their record with engaging with any drug or alcohol treatment programmes and educational services. Foreign prisoners will be offered Skype calls to their families back home.

However, for those who come to the attention of the prison authorities or do not meaningfully engage with the rehabilitative services offered in jails, their allowance will be cut to 95c. It means they will have very little money to buy goods such as cigarettes and newspapers from prison tuck shops.

The prison authorities are also planning to take 15c from all prisoners’ allowances towards the cost of the TVs they have in their cells and the telephone calls they are entitled to make to family or loved ones.

Mr Donnellan told the annual conference of the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) that the planned new scheme will deliver annual savings in the region of €430,000.

“We are introducing in the next few months,” he said.

“We want to encourage prisoners to join the programmes, the education, the supports, take the drug counselling so we can create a safer society.”

He rejected suggestions by the POA that prisoners who broke items such as TV sets were not punished and that the broken items were simply replaced.

While the items were eventually replaced, Mr Donnellan said this was because the prison service had to be fair to prisoners.

“Prison is the punishment that has been (imposed) by the courts. We have to execute that sentence on behalf of society and the courts. And we have to have a fair and humane system.”

The Inspector of Prisons Judge Reilly and “European watchdogs” were asking that fair and humane systems of imprisonment be delivered and that’s what the Irish Prison Service needed to achieve.