The Corradino Correctional Facility (CCF) is anything but correctional and needs reform that would see it run professionally and not through improvisation as it is now, the director of Mid-Dlam ghad-Dawl, Fr Mark Montebello, OP, said yesterday.
The controversial Dominican priest who works among inmates and their families was addressing a press conference outside the prison during which he circulated a report on the work carried out by his organisation at the CCF during the past year.
Asked to suggest how the situation could be improved, after delivering a list of complaints on the current system, Fr Montebello said that, at the very least, the prison director should be professionally trained in correctional services.
The police should be taken out of the system, he said, arguing that the officers' work ethic is incompatible with their role at the prison. "The police are always scheming in prison with one prisoner to nail the next... That is what they have been trained to do and trained to think, but that's not the ideal work ethic for people working at a correctional facility."
Mid-Dlam ghad-Dawl dealt with 242 cases last year with the majority being foreigners: 58 per cent as opposed to 42 per cent Maltese.
The biggest and most pervasive problem inside the CCF remains drug abuse. Apart from the fact that some prisoners actually take up the habit inside, inverting the purpose of the facility completely, the problems spill over to the inmates' families, Fr Montebello explained.
Prisoners are impoverished by the habit, he continued. Some actually incur debt inside, at times running into hundreds of liri, and they send their creditors knocking at their family's doors for payback.
"To these families, prison is no longer a safe place where their problem children are being kept away from trouble."
Fr Montebello said that the one of Mid-Dlam ghad-Dawl's main activities was to help inmates financially. Asked whether this could feed inmates' habits, he said the NGO vetted cases carefully and did not give any assistance if it knew the money could be going towards drugs.
Asked to comment on claims made recently in court by Joseph Fenech (better known as Zeppi l-Hafi) to the effect that the amount of drugs in the prison was intolerable, Fr Montebello agreed, cautioning, however, that Mr Fenech's description may have been somewhat over the top.
Fr Montebello complained that the Home Affairs Ministry consistently left out Mid-Dlam ghad-Dawl when it handed out assistance to other NGOs working in this field, despite his organisation's commitment.
"I have no idea why, but we know that other NGOs doing this work are given funds by the ministry," he said.