Failing to protect prisoners from harm

2nd September 2009

On Monday, 24 year old Mark Kelly passed away in the Mater Hospital having been transferred from Mountjoy on Saturday. The facts surrounding his death are still vague, but reports in the Evening Herald suggest that he died from the consequences of a heroin overdose. It appears that on returning to the prison after a short period on temporary release for a family funeral, Mark complained of feeling depressed and was placed in a padded cell under observation. Newspaper report have suggested that he may have been bullied into internally smuggling a large cache of heroin into the prison after returning from temporary release.

There will presumably be a full internal investigation into the death and at this point all of our sympathies must go out to the family of a young man taken from them so young. Undoubtedly, given the complex problems many prisoners bring with them into prison, protecting them from violence and harm can be difficult, and certainly no system will be perfect; but the circumstances of this case give cause for alarm and raise particular questions about the capacity of prison authorities to control access to illegal drugs where a prisoner is under the highest level of observation and at risk of self harm. The strategies and procedures in place to identify and protect at risk prisoners must again come under serious scrutiny.

The Commission of Investigation into Gary Douch’s death in the same wing of Mountjoy in 2006 is still ongoing but it is commonly known that, far from improving, in many respects conditions in Mountjoy have deteriorated since then. While Ireland has not had the same level of avoidable death in prison as some of our neighbours, there have been a worrying number of violent incidents in the prison in recent months, including the not widely reported killing of David Byrne in May.

Which brings us to another question thrown up by this latest tragedy – since when has the death of a 24 year-old man in the care of the State become un-newsworthy? The silence of the main media on Mark Kelly’s death speaks volumes for the media’s, and perhaps society’s indifference to the fate of the young vulnerable men caught up in our criminal justice system.