Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1391768
2 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR Matthew Vella mvella@mediatoday.com.mt Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 11 JULY 2021 Solitary confinement is torture: it has to go Editorial IT would, perhaps, be premature to discuss the full implications of the latest casualty of Malta's prison system – a young woman, who died in custody after having attempted suicide last June. But it is certainly not premature to conclude that something must be very rotten in the state of Corradino. Without going into the merits of this latest case: Mal- ta's prison seems to have a disproportionately high rate of inmates dying under similar circumstances. Just last April, a Council of Europe report suggested that Malta experienced both the highest growth rate in incarcera- tion between 2019 and 2020; and also, the highest sui- cide rate in prisons out of the whole of Europe: at 25.2 per 10,000 inmates. And yet, this revelation did not (as one would realis- tically expect, in almost any other country) prompt the government to – at the very least – order an investiga- tion into the current administrative practices in place at Corradino. Now, even the news of yet another statistic to (appar- ently) add to that list, has seemingly been swept under the carpet. While a magisterial inquiry was duly ap- pointed into the latest fatality: there has been no visible attempt to get the bottom of what is clearly a problem at the very heart of Corradino. All this, it must be said, is also happening at a time when the same prison administration is also the subject of allegations of human rights abuses – including com- plaints about 'punishment chairs', and other practices used for the purposes of 'instilling discipline' (or, as the prison's own director put, it in a note to welcome new inmates: 'to teach fear'). Naturally, one can understand that a prison, of all in- stitutions, would certainly need to instil and maintain a desirable degree of discipline: and also that the allega- tions against any prison director – which, if true, would amount to 'torture and degrading treatment' – must be fully investigated. But in view of both the severity of the allegations themselves, and also the damning statistics: it is quite frankly unconscionable for the government to persist in its attitude that no such problems exist at all. Elsewhere, one does not even need an inquiry, to es- tablish that certain aspects of Malta's prison system are, in themselves, both antiquated and indefensible. As pointed out by Andrew Azzopardi, dean of the University's Social Welfare Faculty: the practice of Sol- itary confinement – even though widely regarded as a human rights violation – is still maintained in Malta's prison system. Indeed, the law permits inmates to be isolated, both as part of a criminal sentence; and also, as a punitive measure to be used at the discretion of the prison management. Clearly, this is wrong. And it is indeed remarkable that such an obvious statement even needs to be made at all, in today's world: ironically, characterised by such heightened awareness regarding mental health issues in Malta. Solitary confinement is, in itself, a form of torture. It involves being locked up in an isolated setting with limited external stimulation, and in physical conditions which are often severely degrading (and even physically harmful). Moreover, there is a substantial evidence that individuals subjected to Solitary confinement experi- ence significant detrimental effects on their physiologi- cal and psychological wellbeing. Such effects include the obvious severe damage to the individual's emotional state, but also significant physical changes in the brain itself: among other things, greatly increasing the risk of anxiety and depression (the lat- ter, in particular, being not only a major life-threatening condition: but also a rather obvious risk in any prison setting). And all for no tangible benefit, either. For as Azzopar- di pointedly observes: "locking prisoners up in solitary confinement for hours will not make Malta any safer, but rather makes inmates more vengeful." Naturally, one must be cautious when forging any link between the continued application of Solitary confine- ment – as a method of 'teaching inmates fear' – and the undeniable fact that Malta has the highest rate of prison suicide in Europe. But it is not a connection that can simply be ignored, either. As for cases where it may become imperative to isolate a particular inmate – due to posing a threat to their own safety, or that of others around them -there are other ways to deal with such cases, without violating human rights. Moreover, in such cases it would be preferable to as- sign priority to the Mental Health Act, instead of the Prison Regulations. This would effectively necessitate that the decision to place a prisoner under restrictive care, would no longer be under the discretion of the Prison Director. This, too, is another reason why such practices are ab- horrent: they place far too much power, in the hands of a prison management that – for the present, at least – seems to be free from any form of direct scrutiny. For these and other reasons, this newspaper can only back the public calls for a thorough reform of the prison system: a reform which would hopefully consign such archaic practices to the dustbin of history, where they belong… 4 July 2011 MEPA U-turn: authority to 'bill' government instead of subvention 'SELF-SUSTAINING' MEPA will bill govern- ment for its services to keep receiving €7 million in taxes, despite higher development fees it is now charging to developers and domestic clients. Past declarations by government and MEPA that the new, higher development fees will en- sure the authority fully finances itself have been put paid by a decision to have MEPA "bill" the government for its services: a roundabout way to receive a subvention from the state. In the budget speech for 2010, finance minister Tonio Fenech announced that "a new tariff sys- tem will come in place and this will mean that the authority will no longer receive a subvention." And last January, MEPA chairman Austin Walker told MaltaToday in an interview that the new tariff regime was necessary "to eliminate the €6 million paid by the taxpayer to finance MEPA… we had no choice but to increase the tariffs." The new system through which MEPA will bill government for its services was announced by parliamentary secretary Mario de Marco in an interview with MaltaToday. De Marco was asked why MEPA's latest fi- nancial estimates for 2011 show the government spending €7.7 million to finance the gap in MEPA's accounts, despite government's com- mitment to turn MEPA in to a self-sustaining authority. This amount is even higher than the €7 million subvention granted to MEPA in 2010 which still left the authority with a €2 million deficit. De Marco insists that no government subven- tion will be paid in 2011, but the government "revisited" the concept of a self-sustaining au- thority, distinguishing between the planning and development side of MEPA which should be self-financed through tariffs; and those other aspects of MEPA's work through which it renders a service to government and consequently is of national interest. "There is a realisation that there is a lot of work which MEPA is doing for government. This in- cludes most of the work which the Environment Protection Directorate and Forward Planning unit are doing," de Marco said. ... Quote of the Week "Inevitably this will have significant economic consequences to the entire tourism industry, its employees and its stakeholders" The Federation of English Language Teaching Organisations in Malta (FELTOM) reacting to the government's decision to close English language schools in the wake of a spike in COVID-19 cases MaltaToday 10 years ago