Ireland - Prison drug problem 'may be getting worse'

[Lunar Loops]

This from the RTE News website:

Prison drug problem 'may be getting worse'

Monday, 23 June 2008 12:11

A new report has found the drug problem in Irish prisons is as serious as ever and may be getting worse.
Official Department of Justice policy is to keep jails drugs free but the report claims current efforts to eliminate the availability of drugs to prisoners are 'unrealistic'.
The report, which is being launched today by the Drugs Policy Action Group, suggests there is irrefutable evidence that many incarcerated drug users continue to take drugs in prison.
It also claims many prisoners start using drugs in jail, or graduate to harder substances.

The group acknowledges improvements in prison medical services for drug users, but warns poor conditions generally in Irish jails - as well as a lack of rehabilitation services - are contributing to the drugs culture in prisons.
Inadequate policies have seen prisons also become recruiting centres for membership of organised gangs, the report says.

Group chairperson Sean Cassin says current drugs policy is fragmented, under-developed and poorly resourced.
Radical improvements are required in the level of treatment and rehabilitation offered within the prison system, Mr Cassin added.



Note: The full paper has been uploaded to the file archive here:

http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/loc...id=105&id=5270

[ShawnD]

Does anyone else think a lot of these prison problems are self-inflicted? Let me give an example. This is a prison riot. Obvious question is "why are these people allowed to walk around to hang out like it's high school?" If they were forced to sit in a jail cell and watch TV or read a book, maybe crap like this wouldn't happen, or at least not as often.

[FuBai]

Originally Posted by ShawnD

Does anyone else think a lot of these prison problems are self-inflicted? Let me give an example. This is a prison riot. Obvious question is "why are these people allowed to walk around to hang out like it's high school?" If they were forced to sit in a jail cell and watch TV or read a book, maybe crap like this wouldn't happen, or at least not as often.

Agreed. It barely looks like a suitable place for holding committed criminals. One would expect them to be in solitary confinement for most of the day, with a few hours for exercise and meals. I have to say that, at the end of the video I found myself wanting the wardens to just go to their cells and beat the shit out of them, and if that's how I felt just watching, imagine how hard it must be for a prison officer who has just been assaulted in the course of her job. And you can't argue that the prison officers started it all because they were brutal or massively corrupt because, even if that were the case, it has been a fued past on from many years ago, so that its present practicioners are put at each others throats by passed on hatred from long dead cons and screws. A new officer is likely to be brutalised simply for his or her uniform, and to pass that brutality on to the other cons, whom he or she percieves as being of the same kidney.