Ethics in Irish Prison Service - Essay Example

THE STUDY OF ETHICS WITHIN THE WORK OF THE IRISH PRISON SERVICE b 17TH JANUARY, 2009 To establish a relationship between ethics and prison, it’s important to understand what an ethical prison actually refers too. In practical sense , an ethical prison recognizes its obligation to serve the community with full respect for the human dignity and rights of every person, it is obliged to help every offender live as a law abiding person , it makes available services which are appropriate to the prisoners well-being and personal development, the service tries to mitigate the detrimental effects of imprisonment , the ethical system is always ready to help prisoners, it deeply values the resources available to it, and above all an ethical prison readily accepts that that it is accountable for its actions and demonstrates this accountability in public. The Irish Prison Service considers itself to be fully responsible for imparting provision of safe, secure custody for those people who are a part of the prison and believe that they are a vital component in the country’s criminal justice system, thereby supporting secured communitarian life (Key Note 2). The Irish Prison Services was propounded as an independent executive agency of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The major reason for establishment of agency was to incorporate a change and development in the prison services. The Irish Prison Service has undergone numerous changes in the past to establish itself as an independent organization and in the current times is forging ahead to promote cultural awareness, effective communication and racial equality in Irish Prisons. Irish Prison Service aims to follow principles whereby all persons are treated on the same grounds, equally under its care with courtesy and respect. The service even reviews its internal procedures related to staff training and processing prisoner complaints at regular time intervals. According to MR Aylward “the intention of Irish Prison Services is to respond positively to the new reality which is ethnic diversity in Irish Prison life” (Key Note 1). In order to construct an efficient and effective ethical prison framework, the service ensures to deliver quality regimes with a major focus on throughcare and rehabilitation (Key Note 2). Various issues in different realms such as social, health, criminology etc have emerged in the recent time which requires a deeper scrutinization of the prison services provided to the people. For instance in a research conducted few years ago, it was suggested that imprisonment should not deprive an individual of access to services and facilities that actually mitigate or lessen up the risk of harming oneself. Investigations of the research indicated that provision of needle exchange was one of the reasons which caused an increase in transmission of bloodborne viral infection in prisons. Allwright S, Bradley F, Long J, Barry J, Thornton L, Parry, JV ( 2000 ) had produced a highly creditable insight into bloodborne infections among prisoners in the Irish Republic, bringing out the fact that a high occurrence of infection with hepatitis C virus was observed. The study highlighted a very significant role of the prisons in promoting health as an ethical issue whereby the Irish Prison Service was suggested to initiate programs which aimed to minimize harm through establishing a properly executed vaccination programme targeting all prisoners. Such programmes could certainly mitigate the risk of acquiring or disseminating hepatitis B virus and reducing the risk of more aggressive liver and other chronic diseases (Smyth P B, 2000). Incorporating ethics in terms of social issues in the Irish prisons is about acknowledging differences that are a natural part of society and adapting the practices and procedures to create an inclusive environment. The service treats each individual with respect and values them for their contribution to the team irrespective of age, race, and gender, working pattern, religion or disability. Exploring another aspect , a unique epidemiologically research was conducted on the subject of Psychiatric morbidity in a cross-sectional sample of male remanded prisoners by Linehan A S, Duffy M D, Wright B, Curtin K, Monks S, Kennedy G H (2005) for the first time in Ireland. Ethical approval for the study was granted by the Research Ethics Committees of the Irish Prisons Service and the National Forensic Mental Health Service whereby 232 men were interviewed. It was found in the sample that high rates of psychiatric morbidity existed. The six month prevalence of psychosis was recorded to be 7.6 percent which was almost twice the rate as per the international meta-analysis. Profound depressive disorder was observed in 10.1 percent people. Substance misuse problems were also detected in the research but no significant difference between rates of substance misuse in psychotic and non-psychotic prisoners was observed. A total of 31.2 percent did have a lifetime history of any sort of mental illness apart from substance misuse, adjustment and personality disorder). The results of the findings confirmed that high intensity of psychiatric morbidity was identified in the samples which clearly reflected that major needs and requirements of the mentally ill patients were unfulfilled by the mental health services and addiction treatment services for the mentally ill in Irish prisons was also required. The key findings of the study also included that the occurrence of psychoses in sample intervened was significantly greater than in an international comparison group. Moreover, the prevalence of psychoses in the sentenced population was lower than in this remand population which proves that the number of mentally ill prisoners is high in the remand than in the sentenced population (Linehan A S, Duffy M D, Wright B, Curtin K, Monks S, Kennedy G H, 2005). The reason may be due to the fact that psychotic men are being arrested for minor offences which do not influence custodial sentences. Actually the accused are being remanded in custody whereas they should be taken to the local psychiatric services by the arresting Garda officer, or following an assessment in the Garda Station, or following the intervention of a psychiatric. On the whole meeting the health needs of prisoners requires service innovations in community and secure hospital care as well as reform of Criminal Justice Mental Health Legislation is also necessary to impart effective mental health care for the mentally ill in prison (Linehan A S, Duffy M D, Wright B, Curtin K, Monks S, Kennedy G H, 2005). The NIPS conducted a Staff Attitude Survey in 2006 and acquired information about the experiences of working in the NIPS. The responses which were accumulated pointed out that the Service did not value diversity and also revealed few experiences of unfair treatment, discrimination or harassment and bullying at work. Women and part-time workers harbored feelings of being underprivileged and disadvantaged in regard to the attitudes displayed by their colleagues or NIPS procedures. Staff also revealed that inappropriate behaviour was not at all discouraged (Key Note 3). To make a difference and handle the above issues, it’s very important to understand that diversity is nothing but bridging differences among individuals in the workplace and wider community. Such differences are marked by the experiences, backgrounds and beliefs of colleagues, prisoners and their families, and the wider community we all are a part off. In order to overcome the above mentioned ethical issues, the Irish Prison Service reinforced the organizational values by imbibing major key factors in its policies and procedures such as recognizing that fact that the Service requires the commitment of all its staff, prisoners and each and every person associated with it, leading well and behaving with integrity, maintaining prisoners' human rights and working with them as individuals to become law-abiding, ensuring that Service has all the required skills and competences, accepting responsibility and accountability for all past issues and trying not to reiterate any of them again in future, managing resources including time, cost and human sources effectively, developing an innovative approach and restructuring the old ways of performing work as the changes in wider society always renders various opportunities to introduce new ways of working and to inculcate different skills and abilities, encouraging team spirit and working in partnership with other organizations, holding by a strong and sturdy commitment towards fairness, equality and respect for each other and those whom the Service is in contact with. Valuing and encouraging diversity will help generate an environment that is all inclusive and supportive (Key Note 3). Numerous issues had emerged around last quarter of 2007, when three pejorative reports on the Irish prison system were released. First report was issued by the Inspector of Prisons who criticized the prison service on the grounds that imprisonment is regarded to be the only option available for the judges as most of the convicts are too poor to pay the fine. It was also revealed that due to the availability of limited opportunities for poor people who are further addicted or posed up with mental health problems; compel the judges to resort to the last means to imprison them who will eventually leave prison with their addiction or mental health problems untreated. Second report by the Chaplains focuses on the welfare and dignity issues of the prisoners. He criticized the service to use prison as the first and the last resort to treat crime and also highlights the inappropriate imprisonment of prisoners suffering with mental illness. The third report by the Council of Europe after their inspection of prisons in 2006 but published on October 2007 repeats all the criticisms of the last two reports in addition to allegations of assault by prison officers against prisoners. To overcome the above issues, the Irish Prison Service tried to explore the “restorative justice”, option where the offender and victim meet with a skilful facilitator, who offers some valuable alternative to imprisonment. Restructuring the rehabilitation process was identified as a major solution to the issue posed up by Chaplain. A deeper insight into the system is required to eliminate the cases of brutal assault against prisoners. In the earlier times, the Irish Prison Service operated in a very difficult security environment which took a heavy toll on staff and their families, and the service approach to the care and custody of prisoners was merely due to necessity, however with the changing times the service is working to develop a greater focus on rehabilitation and resettlement in accordance with the public safety interests and the needs of victims. In Ireland today, specifically related to health services and other care providers, a new approach is adopted whereby person centered care is the prime area of concern. The emphasis is on the re-integration of service users with the wider community and also to re-integrate the wider community with service users. To imbibe such concepts, the Irish Prison service since 1973, has been involved in providing access to farming and horticultural activities in open-prison or low security settings. Horticulture and agriculture are part of rehabilitative activities. The Service makes use of farming as one of the innovative approaches for the development of new skills and confidence level among the prisoners. Such activities are also used to distract prisoners from involving themselves in drug and alcohol abuse. The social context from the domestic environment is very different when compared to a prison. Each object takes an enhanced meaning altogether. For instance ‘key’ and ‘gate’ which represent home or security in domestic affairs reflects a completely different reality for a prisoner. The key is a medium that represent the contract between prison officers and wider society that they protect. The cigarettes may be a part of the social habit in society, but could become a form of currency in prison. Social norms generate the patterns which shape the generally accepted behaviour in a society (Leonard L, 2008), for instance, police wears uniform as a part of their duties whereas people in society dress up as per their will to match up the occasion they are dressing for. The ethical and moral performance in the prisons was evaluated by Liebling (2004). Other studies clearly revealed the moral and ethical values which should be a part of the prison officer’s character in order to handle the people in the best possible manner (Leonard L, 2008). Qualities such as moral fibre including confidence, integrity, honesty, judgment, flexibility, professional orientation, optimistic outlook, deep understanding, empathy, patience, consistency, resilience, compassion, observant etc. the studies also highlighted the major issues of the prisons such as health and safety concerns, quality of prison for the prisoners, low staff numbers, resettlement, productivity issues etc. It can be said that social control is maintained through various beliefs and values that an individual upholds. The absence of moral values leads to a criminal behaviour. In establishing a relationship between socialization, society and criminology, Robert K. Merton, developed the concept of anomie, and names it as ‘Strain Theory’ (Leonard L, 2008) which can help the Irish Prison service in delving intricately into the subject of criminology and focusing on rehabilitating and restructuring the life style of prisoners in a more ethical and moral manner.. Merton believed that problems or strain is generated under conditions when the objectives or desire shared by all individuals in society are not available or approachable by some of the people who have unequal opportunity, which in turn gives rise to social demarcations and ultimately ends up in deviant behaviour. Such negative conditions are the root cause for giving birth to the anti social elements or constructing pathways to criminal behaviour. Our society puts severe pressure on individuals for the attainment and achievement of their goals. In the absence of equality of access to the available opportunities in society, some individuals finally resort to illegitimate or unlawful behaviour in order to gain power(Leonard L, 2008).. Merton outlines five distinct aspects of societal strain which shape up due to the non-fulfillment or lack of access to the opportunities necessary for an individual to forge ahead in life (Leonard L, 2008). Conformity is the most common response through which people accept both social goals and the established means of achieving them. Individuals who are too much obsessed with attainment of success try to figure out various means to achieve their goals and ambitions. Criminal activity may be one such goal through which the goals of individuals may be realized in a short span of time. For instance most of the Irish prisoners tend to have a poor educational and employment record and often belong to broken families. Such background is justified enough for them to adopt unfair means of success (Leonard L, 2008). Ritualism on the other hand involves abandoning or discarding goals and expecting the current standard of life afforded as per the unique character. Retreatism as another aspect upholds views which involve giving up goals by adapting a non-achieving lifestyle and deviate to other areas of change incorporating alcoholism or illegal drug use or dropping out and isolating oneself from the mainstream society. Rebellion is reflected in the outbreak of protests or revolutions. Social movement activism and cultural innovation may involve large scale social rebellion (Leonard L, 2008). The basis for all social action should be the utilitarian concept that demands that the punishment should fit the crime. On the whole it can be said that social control regulations can transform themselves into the laws, norms and ethics of the society. REFERENCES Allwright S, Bradley F, Long J, Barry J, Thornton L & Parry, JV. (2000). Prevalence of antibodies to hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV and risk factors in Irish prisoners: results of a national cross sectional survey. BMJ. 321:78–82. Key Note 2. Irish Prison Service. Home Page, retrieved on 17th Jan, 2009, http://www.irishprisons.ie/ Key Note 3. MAKE A DIFFERENCE. (2008). Northern Ireland Prison Service Diversity Strategy. 2008 – 2011. Retrieved on 17th January, 2009. Key Note 1. Irish Prison Service. 14th March, 2003. New Irish Prison Racial Awareness Publication, retrieved on 17th Jan, 2009, http://www.irishprisons.ie/News2003-01.htm Linehan A S, Duffy M D, Wright B, Curtin K, Monks S, Kennedy G H . (2005). Psychiatric morbidity in a cross-sectional sample of male remanded prisoners Ir J Psych Med 22(4): 128-132 Smyth P B. (2000). Health effects of prisons : many injectors stop injecting while imprisoned. BMJ 321(7273): 1406. Leonard L. (2008). Sociology, Criminology and Society. Micromarketing & Greenhouse Press, Galway. Published in the Republic of Ireland. http://www.crimeandsociologyjournal.blogspot.com Read More