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ANKLE MONITORS COULD soon be used an alternative to keeping people accused of crimes in prison while they await their trial to provide “respite” for Ireland’s overcrowded prisons.
According to the Director General of the Irish Prison Service Caron McCaffrey, a new electronic tag system, managed by the State, will be primarily used for people awaiting trial in order to cut down on the number of people housed in Irish prisons.
Roughly 20% of the daily prison population is made up of people awaiting or on trial, known as being held on remand. Due to the fact that someone on remand has not been convicted of a crime it is not possible for them to be granted temporary release.
More and more prisoners who are convicted of minor crimes and are at a low risk of reoffending are being granted temporary release in order to alleviate overcrowding in Irish prisons, the Prison Officers’ Association has claimed.
As of yesterday, 5,308 people were in custody in the nation’s prisons. 981 of that total were on remand, according to the official daily statistics from the Irish Prison Service.
McCaffrey, who is the first woman to hold the position of Director General at the Irish Prison Service, said that it is hoped that the electronic tag system will provide “respite” to the overcrowded prisons in Ireland.
“From my perspective, where I see benefits in terms of electronic monitoring is as an alternative to remand. The remand population [in Irish prisons] has more than doubled in the last five years,” she said.
She added: “It is certainly something that I believe would give us some respite in relation to overcrowding. For example, the technology would allow people to be excluded from certain areas while they’re awaiting trial.
“It would allow them to be at a certain address at certain periods of the day or the night and that certainly has the potential to reduce the number of people in custody.”
Laws around the use of electronic tags have been approved in Ireland since 2007 and the devices were briefly used by the Irish Prison Service between 2013 and 2018 but were scrapped due to reported value-for-money concerns.
Within that time, over 100 people were placed on an electronic tag primarily for monitoring convicted prisoners during temporary release. A third-party, insurance firm Chubb, was tasked the managing the system at the time.
Since then, McCaffrey said that the temporary release programme has instead been partnered with support mechanisms, such as therapy or addiction resources, and that the new tagging regime will target those on remand and newly-released sex offenders.
She said similar support services may also be extended to those placed on ankle monitors. Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan yesterday announced that he was personally commiting to introducing electronic tags by the end of this year.
The minister said the procurement process, or the purchase of the devices, has yet to be finalised but should be completed this year. McCaffrey said she understands the government is developing the proper use procedures and protocols for the devices.
The head of the Irish Prison Service said up to 2,000 people are currently on waiting lists to access psychology support services. There are also smaller waiting lists for other services, such as addiction therapy, education and training programmes.
Unfortunately, she said, there are cases where prisoners are released without being seen to.
“We’ve significantly increased out psychology service. We’ve increased the level of staff and our psychology service by 50%. But at any one time our psychology service is providing a service to 600 people, but there’s over 2,000 people on the waiting list.
“Many of whom have never accessed any treatment of services in the community and many people, unfortunately, who leave our custody go back to the community without having gotten the treatment they need,” she said.
McCaffrey said a “whole of government approach” is needed in order to boost services such as education, training and therapy in prisons in order to improve the level of treatment to people in custody, “particularly where there’s mental health or addiction issues”.
She said roughly 80% of the prison population present to the service on arrival with pre-existing addiction problems. The same amount of people are on short-term sentences, between six and 12 months.
Speaking to the Irish Prison Officers’ Association’s Annual Conference in Galway yesterday, Minister O’Callaghan said that Irish prisons need to be made “fit for purpose” and that includes identifying methods to cut down on overcrowding and add more beds.
Asked by The Journal if she believes Irish prisons are fit for purpose, McCaffrey defended the service’s record and its advocacy for people in custody to seek care for issues such as addiction.
“I’m incredibly proud of our prisons. I’m incredibly proud of our staff. And every staff member from our prison officers, our managers, our psychologists, our nurses, our doctors, our teachers, all our in-reach services, our headquarters staff,” she said.
“Prisons in Ireland are incredibly safe,” she said. “When you look in comparison to other jurisdictions, our prisons are incredibly safe. Relationships are incredible between our staff and our prisoners.”
She said the difficulty for determining whether prisons are ‘fit for purpose’ depends on the interpretation of a prison’s “purpose” but she acknowledged that a lack of treatment or intervention increases the risk of reoffending.
As a result of that acknowledgment, staff within the prison service are being upskilled and trained on methods to provide and assist in the care of prisoners with mental health issues, she said.
Additionally, a pilot programme has been launched in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin which trains and educates prisoners on providing addiction care in a peer-led manner to others.
“The aim was to use people, who dealt with their addiction while in custody and came out the other side, as peer-mentors and to give them the training to be able to support other people in custody to address their addiction.
“I definitely believe that somebody’s time in custody presents an ideal opportunity to deal with their addiction, that they might never get at any other stage of their life.”
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