“The question is, do you feel lucky, punk?” With these words, Clint Eastwood helped to symbolise the American ‘get tough’ policy on crime. Made in the mid-1970s Eastwood's Dirty Harry films, along with the Death Wish films of Charles Bronson, embodied in film the frustration that many US voters felt about soaring crime rates. America was as mad as hell, and wasn't going to take it any more.
From the 1980s on, tough policies helped Republicans dominate the crime issue, and went a long way towards cementing their political success. Which is probably why an Arkansas governor and presidential candidate, Bill Clinton, sought to ‘prove’ his bona fides by refusing to pardon a mentally ill person on Death Row.
Since 1991, there has been a sharp fall in the number of offences committed. Cities like New York now have far lower crime rates, and appear to be a model of how to reduce anti-social behaviour.
But at a significant cost. America has among the highest incarceration rates in the world. As of 2006, a record 7 million people were behind bars, on probation or on parole, of which 2.2 million were in custody. (The People's Republic of China lagged behind with 1.5 million.) The US has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated population. A tragically high number are black. In 1998, nearly one out of three black men between the ages of 20-29 were in prison or jail, on probation or parole, on any given day.
Here in Ireland, we are at a crossroads as regards penal policy. The Government's plan to build a new prison at Thornton Hall, which will ultimately house 2,200 inmates, seems to be a step in the right direction. After all, it will replace the crumbling, overcrowded wreck that is Mountjoy.
But the whole project rests on the unsafe assumption that all the people currently in jail ought to be there. Out of 2,641 prisoners in November 2007, only 9% were guilty of murder, a further 9% were guilty of sexual offences, 3% were guilty of manslaughter and 4% were guilty of offences against property with violence. On the other hand, those guilty of offences against property made up 24% of those in prison. Another indication of how prison is being used predominantly to incarcerate minor offenders is the fact that 40% of prisoners in jail at any given time are in for four months or less. Nearly 80% are in for less than 12 months. Eighty per cent of those in jail are processed through the District Courts, which generally deals with less severe offenders.
Nearly three-quarters of those in prison are addicted to either drugs or alcohol. Meanwhile drug rehabilitation programmes, which ought to be provided by the State under the 1977 Misuse of Drugs Act, barely exist. As matters stand, there are fewer than 30 beds for detox treatment, and nearly 13,000 heroin addicts in Dublin.
Clearly, the criminal justice system is failing to use prison as a last resort. Instead of investing in early intervention, we are content to funnel people through the prisons, an approach which has failed abysmally to prevent people from reoffending. In 2006, about 50% of those released were back in prison within four years. Almost one-third were reimprisoned within a year.
On top of that, Irish prisons contain a high percentage of persons suffering from mental illness - people who arguably ought to be undergoing treatment rather than imprisonment. According to research in 2005, the incidence of mental health difficulties in Irish prisons is 40 times higher than among the general population. About 29% of men in prison suffer from depression, along with over 60% of women.
This brings us to another disquieting element of the Government's plan for its new prison in Thornton Hall, which is to move the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum on to the site. Currently, on bus shelters all around Dublin, the HSE have a series of posters exhorting people to rethink their attitudes to mental health. The supposed aim is to tackle the stigma surrounding this sensitive area.
So much for ‘joined-up’ thinking. Even the Victorians understood that housing the mentally ill alongside prisoners was ill-judged. But our Government doesn't even have their level of compassion and common sense. And according to financial expert Jim Power, of Friends First, the move will be far more expensive than simply redeveloping the current site in Dundrum.
But the most worrying element of the Government's plan is to move a facility for young offenders on to the site in Thornton Hall. For a start, the policy runs entirely counter to the Government's repeatedly stated commitment to ending the incarceration of children. But more importantly, the concept of putting a facility for minors in the same complex along with adult offenders is wrongheaded in terms of simple common sense. The natural instinct of young men is to want to be in the adult facility. Instead of steering the aspirations of young offenders on to a more constructive path, such a policy reinforces their tendency to emulate the older peers.
Few doubt that prisons, as they currently operate, act as a university for crime. This can be seen from our recidivism figures. But by putting a facility for minors on the same campus as an adult prison, we are accentuating this problem.
Government policy since 2006 has allowed the detention of all offenders under 18 in “children's detention schools”. Such a step would enable all those aged under eighteen to be removed from the prison system. And, to be fair, the Government appears to be taking steps to implement such a move. An expert group was set up in 2006 to set in motion the planning needed to extend this model. As a result, it is thought that a new facility for young people will be up and running in the near future.
So, the question is, why are they even thinking of incarcerating young people in Thornton Hall? Why the duplication?
The current prison system is not only ineffective, it encourages high levels of prison violence. A report in 2007 classified Irish prisons as “unsafe”, adding that stabbings and assaults with other objects were frequent. Prisoners who fears for their safety are placed “on protection”, which means being kept in their cells for 23 hours a day, with no access to training and education.
One way to tackle this problem would be to create smaller, self contained units, which would lessen the possibility of intimidation. Given the increased spatial capacity of Thornton Hall, this option is open to policy makers. But the Government has opted for larger units. Another opportunity wasted.
The current model, which the Government appears intent on continuing, not only fails to rehabilitate people but is also hugely expensive. It costs €100,000 per annum to imprison a criminal. Given that many prisoners are drug addicts or mentally ill, wouldn't it be more cost effective to look at alternative methods of treating such inmates? Nobody is suggesting that we molly coddle serious criminals, murderers and thugs who use violence to intimidate the innocent. But the fact of the matter is that such people make up a relatively small fraction of the prison population. For the rest, it seems clear that the prison gates are merely a revolving door.
There are rehabilitative and restorative justice models, such as the Nenagh Community Reparation Project, which have managed to drastically cut rates of re-offending.
"Restorative Justice seeks to redefine crime,” according to one quotation from the NCRP, “by interpreting it not so much as breaking the law, or offending against the state, but as an injury or wrong done to another person or persons. It encourages the victim and the offender to be directly involved in resolving any conflict through dialogue and negotiation … making good, or putting right, the wrong. "
This isn’t do-gooder softness. It’s about having a prison system that recognises that criminal are people who need to be rehabilitated, not just for their sake but also that of society. Such models need to be tried more widely. Ireland doesn't need to follow the Dirty Harry school of criminal justice. And can ill afford to.