PN Calls For Study On Solitary Confinement: ‘No Prisoner’s Health Must Be Under Threat’
A study should be carried out on the practice of solitary confinement in Malta’s prison, the Nationalist Party has proposed.
Questioned by Lovin Malta, a PN spokesperson agreed there must be rigorous protocols in place at the prison to ensure no prisoner’s health, including their mental health, is put under threat.
“We are in favour of a study to establish under which circumstances prisoners are being kept in solitary confinement, whether there are protocols that are being rigorously adhered to, whether keeping people in solitary confinement is helping the prison become a truly corrective facility and what effects solitary confinement has on the prisoners involved,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party adopted a more cautious stance, arguing that Malta’s Prison Regulations are fully compliant with the standards established by the Council of Europe and that solitary confinement in Malta is only used in exceptional cases. There are only three court sentences which include solitary as a punishment, and in all cases, the prisoner involved was found guilty of murder.
However, it said it is open to a debate on whether solitary confinement should be banned, stating that a proposal recently sent by University dean Prof. Andrew Azzopardi provides “a legitimate basis for a discussion in an evolving society”.
“However, the debate on the issue must consider both the need for a rehabilitative justice system and the need to have the necessary measures to discourage crimes and keep order in prison,” a PL spokesperson said.
Maltese law allows for the solitary confinement of prisoners for a maximum ten-day period every two months and it can be handed out by judges as part of a sentence or by the prison authorities as punishment for misbehaviour in prison.
Azzopardi, the dean of the Faculty of Social Wellbeing, recently called for a total abolishment of solitary confinement, noting there is clear evidence that being locked up alone, even for ten days, can severely damage a person’s mental health.
Leading prisoners’ rights activist George Busuttil said that while prison authorities should maintain the right to use solitary as a punishment, it is “unnecessarily cruel” for judges to dish it out as part of a prison sentence.
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