JAIL THUGS TARGET FEMALE WARDERS
Sex assaults and beatings on rise
prison officers are being subjected to increasing attacks by inmates, it was revealed yesterday.
Deputy general secretary of the prison officers association Jim Mitchell said the beatings and sexual assaults have broken an unwritten agreement between prisoners and officers.
Speaking at the POA’S annual conference in Kilkenny yesterday, he added the horror attacks are happening across all jails in the service.
Mr Mitchell revealed: “It’s much more so than before. In days gone by we never encountered anything like that level of assaults on female prison officers. It Vehicle at front of home after the crash was an unwritten rule female officers weren’t touched but they [prisoners] seems to have set that rule aside. There was a sexual assault on a female prison officer in the Midlands.
“There was another attack in Mountjoy where the back of her hair was grabbed and she was smashed off a wall.
“There was another instance where staff were bitten and where a prisoner self-harmed and threw blood over an officer.this is just some of the litany of assaults... there is a huge variety and it is not only assaults on officers, it is assaults on their homes.
“There was an incident in Cork where an officer’s car was burned out in front of their house.”
The organisation has asked the State to arm jailers with batons and pepper spray.
However, head of the Prison Service Michael Donnellan said: Wreckage of car is removed yesterday “Batons and attack dogs in prisons don’t really help build up a relationship.
“In Ireland we have a unique relationship between prison officers and prisoners which allows for that to transfer into a reduction in assaults.”
Meanwhile, it also emerged overcrowding has caused prisoners to sleep on the floor of cells on mattresses.
Mr Delaney said the only solution in the short term is to reopen the training centre in Mountjoy, which is being refurbished, and use the open prisons.
He added: “This would take the pressure off the larger prisons.”