MP suggests conjugal visits for prisoners

Labour MP John Attard Montalto has called for conjugal visits and other measures to encourage prisoners to reform and to protect their families from separations and break-ups.

Speaking in parliament during the adjournment, Dr Attard Montalto said prison regulations needed to be updated and clarified.

Many European countries had found that incentives were useful to motivate the rehabilitation of prisoners and had also improved discipline.

He observed that prisoners under arrest (still awaiting sentence) were entitled to a 15-minute, non-contact visit every day and a 45-minute face to face (contact) visit once a week during which they could meet members of their family round a table.

A sentenced prisoner could see his family for 45 minutes every week.

This, Dr Attard Montalto said, was not ideal. A prisoner should remain in contact with his family, not least in the interests of the family itself. An exaggerated number of prisoners' families were disintegrating, and one should therefore reform the system of home visits. The current system was too sporadic.

One also needed to discuss conjugal visits. One had to see how prisoners could have intimate visits by their partners or spouses, although he was not saying such visits should be frequent. Prisoners were, after all, persons as well and still had wives, partners and families. They should be motivated to make up for the harm they would have caused.

Dr Attard Montalto also suggested that towards the middle or the end of their term, prisoners should be given better opportunity to work through closer collaboration between industry and the prison authorities. The current system where prisoners were able to work only three times a week was clearly not enough. Earnings by prisoners who were given work could be divided between the individual concerned, his family and the victims of his crime.

Education, Dr Attard Montalto said, was also important to help prisoners reform. Unfortunately, the prisons were lacking even in the supply of stationery to prisoners. Education clearly needed to be given more importance at the prisons. Unfortunately, a prisoner who had studied and achieved university entry qualifications had not been allowed to further his studies.

The Labour MP also called for reforms to make the prisons more cost effective and efficient. For example, he said, the operation of the kitchen and the bakery did not appear to make financial sense.

Action was needed to make searches for drugs at the prisons more effective.

The powers of the various officers should be better defined, he said, and the role of the Prison Visitors' Board should be reconsidered.

Concluding, Dr Attard Montalto said he had been handed a document on the situation at the prisons which he would show to the Minister of Home Affairs. He felt it should not be published because of its sensitive nature.