A man’s death by overdose after his early release points to gaps in system
Alan Hempenstall spent his last days lonely, mentally ill and drug-addicted on the streets of Dublin. He died in a laneway off O’Connell Street on March 28th, 2011, with two empty bottles of methadone lying by his side.
A postmortem found an overdose of the medicine killed him.
The 37-year-old from Ballymun, Dublin, had been serving a prison sentence at Wheatfield Prison in the west of the city into the early months of 2011.
On the morning of March 9th he was selected as one of 16 prisoners to be released early, at no notice, to alleviate overcrowding. Most were serving sentences for minor and nonviolent crimes.
But for Alan Hempenstall the unexpected get-out-of-jail card was a death sentence. He had a history of mental illness and drug abuse. He left jail with €38.20 in his pocket.
He had nowhere to go and, because prison staff had not had time to help him source a hostel, social welfare payments or a place on a drug-treatment course, he was extremely vulnerable.
Reduced tolerance
Having detoxed from heroin in jail, his tolerance for the drug was reduced. He immediately fell back into street culture, crime and drug-taking.
His body could not cope with the drugs and, having consumed two bottles of methadone, prescribed for another homeless man he had befriended on the streets, he died.
He had survived less than three weeks fending for himself.
His sister Donna O’Connor told his inquest last month she had been increasingly concerned about his welfare in early 2011.
Her brother “went into himself” and refused to let her visit him in prison.
She said she had telephoned the prison and was assured doctors were looking after him and “not to worry, he would be helped”.
She understood he would be in prison until the end of April but she then got a call from gardaí to say he was dead.
If Alan Hempenstall had not died and reports of his inquest had not appeared in newspapers, nobody would know his name. He would have remained just another of the estimated 17,000 men and women released from prison in the Republic every year.
In most cases they are left to fend for themselves, facing a series of practical challenges that go with reintegration, coupled with the often serious and complex impact imprisonment has had on their families.
While the Probation Service has a key role in monitoring and supporting released prisoners, its focus is on those ordered by the courts to undergo a period of probation after release. If a post-release probation period is not stipulated at sentencing, the Probation Service has no role.
Organisations such as the Irish Penal Reform Trust and the homeless charity Focus Ireland say thousands of prisoners are released every year with no plan in place for that initial vulnerable period of freedom.
Organisations such as Focus Ireland try to fill the gaping holes in State services. Since 2007 it has been running in-reach prison programmes at Wheatfield Prison, Limerick Prison and Cork Prison.
The scheme is funded with money from the Dormant Accounts Fund.
Planning for release
In-reach staff go to prisons to meet people who have been caught in a cycle of crime and are planning for their release. A range of measures such as accommodation, social welfare payments, healthcare and drug treatment or mental health issues can be addressed.
Focus Ireland advocacy manager Roughan McNamara said it is important to have those elements in place from the day prisoners, especially vulnerable ones, are released, before they slide back into the chaos that landed them in prison, which is often drink- or drug-fuelled.
He said evaluations of the in-reach scheme have identified the provision by the charity of short-stay accommodation as a major benefit to newly released prisoners. However, he says the unstructured, no-warning early release of prisoners can derail his organisation’s efforts to put solid plans in place for them. “They can suddenly find themselves on the outside. Their project worker may not even be aware of their release,” he said.
Irish Penal Reform Trust executive director Liam Herrick says what is often forgotten about the experience of imprisonment in Ireland is the damage it can cause to the family unit. In a recent report on the impact of imprisonment on the lives of prisoners’ children, the trust described the children as the “hidden victims of the penal system because they must endure their own sentence, despite not having perpetrated any crime”.
It estimated about 4,300 children in the State are separated from a parent because of imprisonment. The prison population ranges from 4,100 to 4,500 prisoners. The reform trust’s report notes a number of ways in which children and families can be affected by imprisonment, including relationship breakdowns, financial loss, stigmatisation and disruption to childcare arrangements.
Herrick says that while he accepts visitors to prisons must be screened for drugs and other contraband, he believes there is no excuse for the use of perspex screens during visits that eliminate any physical contact between prisoners and their partners or children.
“If everyone is searched going to the visit I cannot understand why there cannot be physical contact with children; they have it in Britain,” he says.
Herrick believes visits from children need to be longer to allow prisoners time to maintain some level of quality relationship rather than “cramming it all into a 15- to 20-minute visit”.
He says the visiting facilities in most prisons are unsuitable for visits from children.
He points to the case of the Dóchas Centre women’s prison on the Mountjoy Prison campus in Dublin as well as the visiting areas in the open prisons of Shelton Abbey in Co Wicklow and Loughan House in Co Cavan as being up to international best practice.
“They are open, with full contact with children, and there are toys they can play with during normalised visits with a parent, usually a father,” he said.
Longer temporary release
Herrick said the use of more structured and longer-term temporary release could be used to help prisoners maintain contact and good relationships with their children.
He points to the case of Scotland, where “extended home leave” of up to seven days is offered for that purpose. He notes Ireland is the only country in the EU where minor convictions are not spent after a period.
“It means that for some crimes, usually those that attract jail terms of less than a year, after certain periods people don’t have to disclose them when applying for most jobs or things like accommodation.”
In Limerick, the Bedford Row project works with prisoners and their partners, children and other family members such as grandparents.
Project leader Larry de Cléir says research suggests prisoners’ families feel isolated. His organisation has erected a prefab at Limerick Prison where refreshments are offered to visitors and toys are provided to children visiting a parent.
Bedford Row runs sports facilities and counselling for children with a parent in prison and also visits prisoners’ families in their homes.
It is 40 per cent funded by the Irish Prison Service, offers counselling and group support settings to the partners of people in jail and has schemes to place released prisoners in training in areas such as carpentry.
“When men – it’s usually men – go into prison there’s a range of implications for the family,” said de Cléir.
“They may be a wage-earner or their social welfare would be stopped. They could be in private rented accommodation, which is then lost. We go into the prison to try to help them prepare to be released.
“But for the families on the outside there is a stigma and isolation. We find by bringing them together to help support each other – even that can be a massive help.”
