It is unbelievable what the laissez-faire attitude haunting Corradino Prison is leading to. Prisoners are frequently pleading in court that they are facing severe drug abuse problems, which have become worse after months or years in detention. Whilst society expects prison to offer some form of rehabilitation it seems ‘criminals’ are welcomed in an environment facilitating self-destruction. The petty excuse resorted to by the authorities is that drugs are present in every prison anywhere, and Corradino is no exception. True. But how many countries are responsible to just less than three hundred inmates held in one complex? Moreover, they are not simply supervised by prison officers like elsewhere, but honoured with the presence of the Special Response Team (SRT), which according to the Anti-Abortion Minister, carries out some 40 searches a day (PQ 11534, 4 April 2005).
Apparently nothing will change until the undesirable happens. The recent riots of 2 July should be considered in this context even if they may be prima facie unrelated to the drug issue. It is a dangerous cocktail of circumstances that brews trouble and not a silly dispute on some electronic device. Which brings us to the crux of mismanagement in Corradino. Since when do prisoners negotiate DVD players and God knows what other? It must not be hard to realise that there is an institutionalised business activity going on. It is also clearer what brings the best money, let alone its rampant abuse.
One cannot but conclude that the plot is lost and the situation irreversible. To be fair, not all are able to benefit from these perks. Actually it is the self-proclaimed and powerful elite that has flourished with the uninvolved approach of the authorities. ‘All prisoners are equal, but some are more equal than others.’ The Hilton of the few is the slum of the plenty.
And by the way, this is all funded from our taxes. Lm27 daily, or better, Lm 10,000 per annum for each prisoner (PQ 262, 3 May 2005), summing up to nearly Lm3 million every year. How about that? The worst part of the story is that no one seems to be responsible or courageous enough to stand up to this shameful and embarrassing state of affairs. From top to bottom, a deep sense of idyllic denial prevails.
