Maghaberry Prison

Erne House

In August 2001 life sentence prisoners at Maghaberry were moved to Erne House following discussions between management, staff and life sentence prisoners in the prison.

As far as possible all life sentence prisoners committed to Maghaberry are accommodated in Erne.

Moving all life sentence prisoners to one house enables Maghaberry to focus resources to meet the requirements of life sentence prisoners and aims to maximise the opportunities for lifers to use their time constructively in prison.

A dedicated staff mans Erne providing continuity of support to lifers.

Erne House operates a progressive landings regime based on the time served by the prisoner, their behaviour in custody and individual risk assessments.

The four stages in the progressive system are: early years, middle years, preparation for temporary release and temporary release. To progress from one stage to the next, prisoners must demonstrate that they meet the criteria for each stage, for example, actively participating in their life sentence plan, participating in programmes etc.

There are approximately 80 life sentence prisoners currently accommodated in Erne.

A new Unit, called Martin House was opened in October 2005 to accommodate a small number of selected life sentence prisoners in the latter part of their sentence who have been assessed and found suitable to be housed in a lower
supervision unit.

A Review of the Regime for Life Sentenced Prisoners was conducted in 2005 and is expected to be consulted on in 2006.