Justice Committee questions Minister on prison capacity and workforce shortages
Questions will be asked about the current pressures on the prison system when the Minister of State for Prisons, Parole and Probation, Damian Hinds, appears before the Justice Committee. Mr Hinds is also likely to be asked about the effect of those pressures on other parts of the justice system.
Meeting details
Reports of plans to redeploy probation staff from their office headquarters to do front-line work in prisons, the reduction in magistrates sentencing powers, the use of police cells to hold prisoners, and recent decisions by judges not to send some offenders to prison due to reduced prospects of rehabilitation are likely to be raised.
Questions on the postponement of non-critical maintenance work in order to maximise the number of available prison cells may also be raised.
During the inquiry the Committee has heard that, in many cases, staff shortages mean prisoners are locked in their cells for most of the day, preventing their participation in rehabilitative work.
The shortage of prison officers has also meant less experienced officers taking charge. Between 2010 and 2022, the departure of prison officers from the prison service has led to an accumulated loss of a total of 100,000 years of prison officer experience.
Minister Hinds will be asked what measures are currently being taken to mitigate these issues. He may also be asked about ability of the prison service to cope with the forecast increase in the prison population from about 85,000 currently to nearly 100,000 by 2026.
The evidence session will seek to explore what measures are underway to recruit and retain staff given the low morale many prison officers feel. A survey by the Justice Committee of prison officers showed that most staff disagreed with the statements ‘staff morale is good in the prison I work in’ and ‘I feel valued for the work that I do’.
The same Justice Committee survey, which over 6,500 prison officers responded to, showed that a very large majority of prison staff thought their salary did not reflect the roles and responsibilities of their jobs.
The Justice Committee intends to publish the results of its survey in full when all the statistics have been compiled.