Coordinating Corradino - former prison director speaks out

"Maybe it's a ludicrous proposal of mine (hmerija), but I think prison should be managed by more than just one person," Emmanuel Cassar, prison director between 1995 and 2002, admits. "At present, everything rests on the shoulders of the director. When prisoners and staff have problems, they all end up at the director's door. He becomes everybody's daddy. And the problems? They never end..."

Given a free reign to redesign the entire system from scratch, Cassar would now recommend a board of directors to manage the prison, instead of the present pyramid structure which tapers towards a single, all-important apex of authority.

But how does he account for the apparent collapse in administrative standards at Malta's only penal institution? Cassar points towards the little-known fact that Corradino's actual population has skyrocketed in recent years: growing from a mere 170 in 1995, to more than 700 today.

"But the number of warders has remained more or less the same," Cassar adds. "Not only that, but their individual workload has meanwhile increased..."

Cassar explains that the job of escorting inmates outside prison, formerly entrusted to the police, has since been passed on to the prison warders themselves - on top of all their other previous responsibilities, which remained unchanged.

And while a new wing was recently completed to accommodate the growing prison population, it has not prevented the shortage of cell-space which had resulted in a suspension of the previous (unwritten) 'one-man, one-cell' policy.

"Even when I was in charge - and the number of prisoners was much lower than today - this problem occasionally cropped up, too. At one point, where the female section traditionally never had more than seven or eight inmates, the number suddenly shot up to 14. We just didn't have space for them, and some cells had to be shared..."

In the far more heavily populated male section, overcrowding has since risen to become a major concern. But it was recent revelations of what appears to be an organised drug trafficking network, operating within the prison itself, that has gravely precipitated public perceptions of a total systemic failure.

Evidence of this failure came graphically to the fore just this week, after the criminal court sentenced Josette Bickle - 40 from Valletta - to 12 years after finding her guilty of running a heroin-trafficking operation out of her cell prior to 2008.

In handing down judgment, Judge Michael Mallia significantly observed that there was a 'high possibility' of involvement on the part of prison authorities.

Explaining that the verdict was 'not just against Bickle, but against the system', Mallia observed: "The large number of visits allowed to Josette Bickle, more than what other prisoners got, and the ease with which drugs used to enter her division and come into her possession, cannot but indicate collusion with authorities."

Even before the above ruling was handed down, a national report on the local drug situation had highlighted the relative ease of availability of drugs in Corradino. Elsewhere, complaints about the same phenomenon had sporadically been raised over the years; among others, by Dutch inmate Perry Ingmar Toornstra, who last year accused the authorities of turning a blind eye precisely to the extent of the drug situation.

In an 11-page letter sent to the Justice Ministry and copied to the press, Toornstra described how his experience in Corradino prison had "turned [him] into a chain-smoking heroin addict who has developed a total understanding of how to commit, and even enjoy, heinous unthinkable crimes".

Government has since played down the significance of these and other damning revelations: questioning the interpretation of the national report, cited elsewhere in the press, that more inmates test positively for drugs throughout the year (41%), than when first admitted to prison (30%).

If true, this detail would signify that a number of persons developed their drug habit while in prison: thus confirming suspicions that drugs are more easily available on the inside than out.

Justice Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici however responded that: "The statistics provided by CCF do not lead to the conclusion that up to 299 individuals were at any point in time found positive in relation to drug abuse, but indicate that the corresponding figure should have read 233 persons."

Reacting specifically to the Bickle sentence, the Justice Minister pointed out how the entire case originated from an inquiry into allegations of misconduct in 2008.

But in a separate reaction, former Justice Minister Tonio Borg - under whose tenure the trafficking operation took place - candidly admitted that he was "unaware" of any reports of drugs in prison when still minister.

How plausible is it for a minister to be so blissfully unaware of such a widely publicised situation?

Cassar - who incidentally also conducted the above-mentioned inquiry - argues that the level of involvement of the minister depends exclusively on his subordinates.

"I don't think it's in the minister's interest to keep these things hidden; on the contrary he has every interest in addressing them directly. It all depends what feedback he was receiving."

Asked whether he himself had ever informed the ministry about drugs in prison, Cassar confirms that the prison authorities used to be in regular contact with ministry officials, discussing all aspects of prison management.

"We used to hold frequent meetings, if not with the minister himself, then with the perm sec," he recalls: specifying that the prison drug situation was often discussed during these meetings.

"There were drugs in prison then, as there are now," he admits. "This situation is not unique to Malta alone: prisons the world over suffer from this sort of problem, to a lesser or greater degree."

However Cassar asserts that the drug situation at Corradino was easier to control in his day, as there were fewer inmates, and the ratio of warders to prisoners was higher.

"And we would monitor them closely," he adds. "All telephone calls were recorded, and it was always possible to tell who the ringleaders were. They would talk in code, naturally, and some things would inevitably slip past us. But it was possible to keep an eye on the general situation, and stop it from getting out of hand."

However, with the numbers of inmates steadily growing, as well as a perceived lowering of discipline standards where phone calls (among others) were concerned, it was increasingly likely that the prison authorities would eventually relinquish some of their previous control.

For one thing, the introduction of a phone card system made close monitoring of phone-calls more difficult. For another, access to mobile phones became harder to restrict.

"A total ban on mobile phones was and still is vital to keeping control of the flow of drugs in and out of prison. In my day, I would insist that not even prison staff would be allowed to keep a phone on their person while on duty. The ban on phones kept by prisoners is still in place today: but when I was conducting the inquiry, I noticed that warders nowadays are allowed to keep phones on them."

Nor is this the only apparent slip in standards: like many people who read about the Bickle case in the newspapers, Cassar was shocked by the way one of the prison warders testified in court.

"It almost looked like she (the warder) was defending Bickle. How can a prison warder be called up to testify in a case, and only talk about the good qualities of a prisoner? When they take an oath, they swear to tell the whole truth. And the whole truth is to say the good as well as the bad..."

This sort of thing, being so public, doesn't help with the growing perception of collusion between warders and prisoners. But at the same time, it is hardly new.

"Once I called a warder to my office and gave him a piece of my mind for testifying in favour of a certain inmate. He described this person under oath as 'well-behaved'... when he had escaped from prison eight times!"

But while he acknowledges that the present system needs to be tightened, Cassar nonetheless expresses impatience with the chorus of armchair criticism in the wake of these and other revelations.

"It is easy, very easy to criticise... to point out problems, to suggest solutions. But prison is the hardest place to administer. You have to take responsibility for everything: even if a warder acts on his own initiative, it will be interpreted as an order that came directly from you. And the director is expected to know everything, to have solutions to everything. He is responsible for everything... but he is not God."