CHRIS SIEGERSMA is a psychiatric nurse who was appointed Commissioner for the Welfare and Development of Prisoners last December. He set up an office inside the prison, where he prefers to work, and where he welcomed Mark Laurence Zammit to speak about what needs to change in the prison.

MLZ: Your job was created last December after Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri ordered an inquiry into former prison director Alex Dalli’s practices following the death of 12 inmates in three years. The creation of the Commissioner for the Welfare and Development of Prisoners was one of the inquiry recommendations. But love him or hate him, Alex Dalli eradicated drugs from prison and created a structure of discipline. Can you guarantee that these two practices are still in place and there are still no drugs here?

CS: I confirm that when I came here in December, I found a drug-free prison, meaning that I didn’t see the rampant exchange of drugs like we used to see under previous administrations.

MLZ: Does that mean some drugs still find their way inside today?

CS: You can never be 100 per cent certain there is not a single trace of drugs.

What’s important is that we find drugs before they get into prison and track down where they came from.

MLZ: Are they found, though?

CS: Yes, they are. We have very secure control protocols and, as things stand, we are still a drug-free prison. We inherited many other good practices from Dalli.

He took the first step in introducing discipline and paved the way for rehabilitation.

[attach id=1185808 type="video"]Video: Matthew Mirabelli[/attach]

MLZ: But Dalli’s practices were very problematic as well. That’s why you’re here and he was kicked out. The most obvious problem was that 12 inmates died in three years under his watch. I know there will always be a rate of inmate deaths, in any prison, but not 12 in three years. What were the other problems you found when you got here?

CS: You cannot compare prison with society. In prison you have a large concentration of people with a history of trauma.

Prison increases that anxiety because it takes away freedom.

It’s difficult to put your finger on who is to blame in these situations. An inmate could commit suicide because they were bullied as a child and found solace in a criminal gang that led them to prison.

MLZ: The point is the inmate only killed himself when he was in prison, which is the place where he was supposedly being cured and rehabilitated.

CS: Because prison exacerbates the trauma.

MLZ: So, instead of healing you, prison traumatises you even more?

CS: Losing your freedom is a trauma in itself. Prison can try to rehabilitate you and help you in every way, but it remains a place that takes away your freedom.

And that’s difficult for anyone.

MLZ: But it feels like you’re telling me that this is how things are and there’s nothing we can do about it. Before Dalli became prison director, the inmates here had experienced the same kinds of trauma you speak of. And those same inmates are still here now. They are being treated by the same professionals and looked after by the same prison guards. But deaths only escalated when Dalli was director... not before him, and not now. So, there must have been something wrong with the leadership under his watch, as the media used to claim.

CS: It’s not that simple. There are always different reasons leading inmates to suicide.

The fact they lost contact with their loved ones because of the pandemic couldn’t have helped, for instance. I’m not justifying any of the deaths, and most of the deaths are still being investigated. We must learn from these investigations.

MLZ: But the fact remains that there were serious problems here.

CS: We’re addressing those problems. I already found a more stable prison than the one I used to know when I worked here as a professional.

Back then, an inmate would have maybe not died through suicide, but they would have died of a drug overdose. We had a situation where inmates’ families would get dealers knocking on their door, telling them their son bought drugs in prison and now the parents owe the dealer money.

It was horrible.

MLZ: Yes, I get that. That’s why I recognised Dalli’s good practice in my first question. But we also know that under his watch, this prison employed borderline torturous disciplinary methods.

CS: They are allegations.

MLZ: The stories which surfaced in the media about Dalli’s prison all turned out to be true.

CS: I can only tell you that as long as I have been here since last December, I have never seen any of those things happen.

MLZ: Because Alex Dalli wasn’t here.

CS: It depends on what you mean by ‘locking someone up’, for example. You could say it’s punishment, but really, if it’s for a short amount of time, it’s a way to prevent him from hurting himself or hurting others until he calms down. It could be done professionally and with great care and it could be beneficial, even for the inmate.

MLZ: When you took the job did you ask what the investigations into the inmates who died here revealed?

CS: Most of them are still open investigations. I am focusing on implementing recommendations of the inquiry that appointed me. We need to move forward.

MLZ: Yes, but before we do that, for the sake of justice, we need to know how these people died, no?

CS: As a citizen, you want to know how they died. As a commissioner, what I’m interested in is to have systems in place that prevent these deaths from happening again.

MLZ: But that’s not justice. Justice is not just making sure bad things don’t happen again, but also knowing how they happened in the first place.

CS: Yes, of course, I understand we need to know that, but my job here is to make sure that these things are prevented from happening again, as much as possible.

The inmates died in a context that was different to today’s. There were different policies and measures, one of them being that the inmates could not see their loved ones because of the pandemic.

That measure was lifted a long time ago, so looking into the past will not solve all our present and future problems.

MLZ: Sometimes I fear that COVID was used too much as an excuse to implement harsher policies than needed. Because there were staff parties here during COVID. The previous administration didn’t seem to be very worried about the spread of the coronavirus during the parties.

CS: (jokingly) Nobody has ever thrown me a party so far.

We have very secure control protocols and as things stand, we are still a drug-free prison

MLZ: Yes, I get that and I’m enjoying this conversation because it seems that in the past four months under your watch and the new director’s administration, the situation has improved drastically. My question was not about what you’re doing wrong, but about what you found that was wrong and what you’re doing to fix it.

CS: That’s why I argued that I must look forward. I need to use my 17-year experience working as a psychiatric nurse to improve things as much as possible in the present and the future.

And there’s another thing I would like to say. During the Dalli administration, the media was instrumental in criticising the system, and it was right to do so because that’s your job. But I don’t think the media was sensitive enough when it reported on deaths and suicides.

It wasn’t sensitive towards the guards and professionals who work here.

I believe they were doing everything they could, with their limited resources, to help these inmates. And no matter how much you work, you’ll always have a death rate in prison. The media should have been more balanced and said that while suicides were unacceptable, there are genuine professionals who are doing their best at their job.

MLZ: I have no doubt that there are some of the best guards, medical and mental health professionals here. But the bottom line remains that people were dying at an alarming rate. Let me rephrase something you said earlier. You said the media was instrumental in ‘criticising’. That’s not quite true. The media was instrumental in bringing about justice.

CS: Yes, as well. I agree.

MLZ: The media was never trying to disparage guards and professionals. It was never saying they’re doing a bad job. It was calling out the prison leadership. After each inmate death, the media would say there was something wrong in the leadership and until that was addressed, inmates would keep dying. And that’s what happened every time. Another inmate died. Things seem to be way better now, and the same guards and professionals still work here. Only the leadership changed... so the media was right.

CS: I’m not saying you did not do your job well. But that coverage had consequences. Whenever we issue calls for applications now, professionals find it hard to apply, because they’re scared.

It happened to me. When I was offered this post, I was worried I will now be blamed for every wrongdoing here, and that’s what they feel. And that’s not fair. This is not an easy place to work in.

MLZ: This is a place that exists to serve the public. This is not a private company and you have a duty to answer for what happens in here. Having said that, I don’t want our job to scare people off from taking up professions here. Our work only called out the leadership.

CS: Yes true, but I wasn’t here during Alex Dalli’s tenure, so I cannot answer for what happened at that time.

MLZ: We’re conducting this interview a couple of days after we received information that Randolph Spiteri, who was Alex Dalli’s second-in-command and still holds that position up to now, was forced out on leave before being kicked out over reports of misconduct with staff and inmates. Spiteri denies the allegations and insists he booked the leave himself and will return to work in the coming days. Will he be kicked out?

CS: I have the same information you have and, as commissioner, it’s not my place to know these things.

It would be better to address the Correctional Services Agency with this question. You said there were allegations about him. I will guarantee you my office will investigate every single allegation that there is.

MLZ: There’s also an allegation of sexual abuse on an inmate.

CS: Every case...

MLZ: Even that allegation?

CS: I’m not speaking about specific cases. I’m talking about all allegations, pertaining to everybody.

MLZ: Yes, but when you say, ‘every case’, that includes Spiteri’s cases as well, no?

CS: It’s not Spiteri...

MLZ: But Spiteri as well, no?

CS: Every case. Be it Spiteri’s or anybody else’s.

MLZ: Were you informed of allegations about Spiteri’s conduct?

CS: Every case that lands on my desk will be investigated. I guarantee you that.

MLZ: Do you agree with solitary confinement? Because the last time I checked, inmates in solitary confinement are locked up for 23 hours and let out for only one hour per day.

CS: Let’s be clear... solitary confinement is court ordered. It’s the law, irrespective of whether I agree with it or not.

MLZ: But you can disagree with a law.

CS: What I will tell you is that inmates today are allowed out of the cell for much more than an hour every day and spend less than 10 days in solitary confinement at any given time.

MLZ: To what extent can you put our minds to rest that the inmates serving sentences here will not commit another crime when they’re out?

CS: It’s not that simple, because all inmates have gone through very different experiences. Some have been in and out of prison since they were youths. It’s more challenging for them, because they are generally victims of a society that failed them time and time again and addressing all those failures here is no easy feat, because for them, prison life has become almost more convenient than life outside.

Many others, however, come here for the first time, and we are focusing on addressing their issues as quickly as possible, to prevent them from getting stuck in the justice system and becoming institutionalised. In any case, we have a care and reintegration team made up of psychologists, care plan coordinators, sports coordinators, social workers and other professionals.

We are even introducing yoga for therapy now as well. We’re also beefing up the job sector for inmates, because work is crucial during rehabilitation, and we’re in the excavation stage of a new rehabilitation wing that will serve as a place where inmates begin and end their sentences.

This section will give them a higher degree of independence and prepare them to be good citizens when they’re out. But then, it’s up to society to give them a chance as well.

MLZ: Mr Siegersma, thank you very much.

CS: Thank you.