Inmates ‘directly affected’ by years of neglect by prison administration

A surprise visit to Malta's prison by the new Home Affairs Minister last Sunday may have caught the administrative napping, but the systemic problems uncovered were nothing new to an NGO which has been calling for structural reform at Corradino Correctional Facility for years.

"Inmates have consistently told us that 'this yard can never been opened' or 'the gym can't be used today', because of a lack of warders to man the facilities," Mid-Dlam ghad-Dawl's George Busuttil said. "The situation was having a direct effect on the lives of the prisoners..."

News that several prison warders turned out to be AWOL when Home Minister Emmanuel Mallia staged a surprise inspection of the Corradino Correctional Facility last Monday, did not come as a surprise to prisoners' rights advocacy group Mid-Dlam ghad-Dawl (MDD).

Director George Busuttil told MaltaToday that inmates had long complained that the shortage of warders on site was having a detrimental effect on their daily lives.

"We have for years been hearing complaints that facilities at the prison couldn't be used, and the excuse was always the same: there are not enough warders," he said.

"Inmates have consistently told us that 'this yard can never been opened' or 'the gym can't be used today', because of a lack of warders to man the facilities. The situation was having a direct effect on the lives of the prisoners."

The home affairs minister paid a surprise visit to the prison at 7.30pm on Sunday, and found that four warders had already left for home when their shift was supposed to terminate at 9pm.

He said a punch clock installed at the CCF was not being used, and that he was informed that it was common practice for warders to leave work early, "sometimes with seven or eight less officers left on duty".

Mallia said there were cases of warders going home as early as 1pm, when their shift would last till 9pm.

"This is a serious case that has taken place within an area of national security where an incident can take place, and the warders paid by the people's tax money are not present for work. The CCF director has claimed he was not aware of the abuse that was taking place, so an investigation will be carried out by the permanent secretary," Mallia said.

Prison director Abraham Zammit tendered his resignation soon afterwards, and the minister has since set up a commission to investigate and review work practices at prison.

This was not the first time that a shortage of warders was identified as major administrative problem within CCF. Even without the truancy issue, the number of prison warders assigned to to the facility is already deemed insufficient at full complement.

Former prison director Emmanuel Cassar told this newspaper in December 2011 that the existing staff was stretched beyond their capabilities - and that was before it emerged that several warders were regularly absenting themselves during work hours.

While Corradino's inmate population has skyrocketed in recent years - growing from a mere 170 in 1995, to more than 700 in 2011 - there has been no corresponding increase in the number of warders on duty.

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

Cassar said 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.

Apart from the problem of overcrowding, especially in the male section, the mismatching ratio of warders to inmates was deemed one of the factors in the explosion of drug-use in prison - as evidenced by the notorious Josette Bickle case.

In 2011, the criminal court sentenced Josette Bickle - then 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.

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 - even though former director Cassar used to hold regular meetings to brief both the minister and the permanent secretary of the situation at Corradino.

Bickle herself has since died in prison.

The case exposed laxity at various levels of prison administration, and Emmanuel Mallia's surprise visit last Sunday appears to confirm that this was still the norm despite the outcry and the promises of administrative reform following the Bickle revelation.

George Busuttil reiterated his NGO's view that the time has come for a thorough overhaul of the prison administration structure.

"Before the election we came out with a detailed proposal for prison reform. The main issue is that prisons should not be run by the police."

It is a point MDD has been making for years. In a February 2012 interview, Busuttil had already insisted that police should not in any way be involved with prison management. "They have another job: to investigate crimes and catch criminals. Running a prison is a different matter; it is a specialised field, and it needs specially trained personnel. Ideally, government should send a team of officers abroad for training in correctional management - which is a science, by the way."

The members of the commission to review operational structures at CCF have not yet been announced, but the board will consist of senior policemen, representatives of various ministries and NGOs involved in prison work.

Busuttil confirms that representatives of MDD had met the new minister shortly after his appointment, and discussed problems within the administration the prison: including the fact that it is the only European prison to be managed directly by the police.