The former governor of Mountjoy prison has said that sexual abuse in Irish prisons has become rampant due to overcrowding.
Speaking with The Irish Catholic, former prison governor John Lonergan said that abuse is currently “widespread” among both male and female inmates due to cells being occupied by two, or sometimes three, people.
“I’ve no doubt in my mind at all that overcrowding actually facilitates sexual abuse and I’d be amazed it doesn’t occur in doubled and tripled situations around prison. It’s so widespread now, both with men and women”, he said.
Mr Lonergan noted that overcrowding had worsened substantially from when he started his career in the prison service.
“When I started off in 1968, it was an absolute basic essential requirement that everybody was accommodated in a single cell.”
“The great strength of single cell accommodation is that it prevented all that types of danger and opportunity for prisoners.”
“I’d be amazed in 50 years’ time, if it doesn’t come to light, that ‘doubling up’ has contributed to an awful lot of abuse of people.”
Mr Lonergan also noted that there are significant issues with gathering hard statistical data on prisoner abuse due to the reporting of harm being a cultural stigma among prisoners.
“The worst crime that a prisoner can commit, as far as the prisoner community is concerned, is to inform or to grass or to report something”, he said.
“So even if you are being abused, the pressure is on you not to grass or to inform or to complain.”
“It’s very, very hard to measure it and I have no hard statistics except based observation.”
Official statistics issued for the start of this month report that the state’s prison system is currently operating at a capacity of 118%.
There are currently 5,494 individuals in custody, with 4,675 prison beds and an additional 448 mattresses on the floor.
