Prisons’ Minister Paul Goggins today said that the role of the Northern Ireland Prison Service must change to reflect the changing nature of society.

He said that while the Service can rightly take pride in what it has achieved in the past, the changing social and political environment means a significantly different role with higher public expectation and levels of accountability. “I want to see a professional, caring and accountable Prison Service – one that can change lives and cut crime,” he told delegates at a Prison Service Offender Management Conference in Antrim.

The Minister said: “The pillars of safer custody, offender management and public protection are at the heart of the modern prison service. The Service will be judged on how effective it is in helping prisoners to address their offending behaviour.”

He said; “Central to the vision of integrated offender management is the way in which the prisoner’s sentence is managed, which requires active engagement by both specialist and non-specialist services. At the heart of these arrangements is the role of the prison officer.

“The prison officer interacts with the prisoner every day and they have the potential to inspire change. The prison officer has more influence over the behaviour of prisoners than anyone else.”

The Minister said that the new public protection arrangements created extra challenges for the Service and while the Prison Service plays a pivotal role in protecting the public from the most violent and dangerous offenders, it must balance this with the dictum that every prisoner should be given every opportunity to turn their life around.

He said: “This Government has rightly been tough on crime and the causes of crime. The days of automatic 50% remission for the most dangerous offenders are over. That is right and proper but even these prisoners cannot be allowed to languish in prison without any meaningful engagement. Risk assessment will play a crucial role in the new public protection arrangements.

“There must be appropriate and timely delivery of offending behaviour programmes which will require a multi-disciplinary approach to offender management. This is the best protection that we can offer the public. We may not be able to eliminate crime, but the challenge is to ensure that everything possible has been done to minimise the risk.”

The Minister also addressed the issue of safer custody. He said that while the transfer of lead responsibility for prison healthcare to the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety offered greater expertise, particularly in the areas of mental illness and personality disorder, the issue of safer custody was and will remain a fundamental principle for the Prison Service and its staff.

He said; “Safer custody is an integral part of delivering healthy prisons and no prison service can be fully modernised until it both acknowledges and delivers this. It is an area of immense importance and I welcome the initiatives that the Prison Service and their partners in the Health Service are currently engaged in.”

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