Futile expansion of the prison estate

Sir, – Minister for Justice Simon Harris claimed that “The era of not expanding prison places is over” (“New prison may be needed to handle overcrowding, Minister for Justice says”, April 27th). This is misleading, as prison capacity has been increasing by stealth for years. For example, in 2019 the official capacity of the Dóchas Centre increased by a third-from 105 beds to 146 beds, with no accompanying infrastructural changes.

In his address to the Prison Officers’ Association conference in Galway, the Minister committed to alleviate overcrowding by delivering an additional 620 prison beds in the next five years. This would be an increase of more than 14 per cent of current capacity.

The last time prison capacity was expanded on this scale was between 1997 and 2001, when the opening of four new prisons-Castlerea, Midlands, Cloverhill, and the Dóchas Centre added an extra 1,000 prison places. This did not alleviate overcrowding, so why would the same measure produce different results this time?

People on housing lists and hospital waiting lists may wonder why the Government is allocating funds to the futile expansion of the prison estate while homelessness skyrockets and our healthcare system is in perpetual crisis?

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The Minister has also identified the Thornton Hall site in the north Dublin countryside as a location for a potential new prison. This was a deeply flawed proposal in 2005 and remains so almost two decades later.

This regressive, expansionist trajectory championed by the Minister is out of sync with both international prison research and the basic principles of even a mild reformist approach. It is locking Irish society into an increasingly carceral future. – Yours, etc,

KEITH ADAMS,

Penal Policy Advocate,

Jesuit Centre

for Faith and Justice,

Dublin 1.