The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment has just published its report on and the response of the (previous) Government of Malta to an inspection it carried out in September 2011. This committee, CPT, as it is known for short, is responsible for inspecting conditions in all prisons in Europe or any buildings or sites where individuals are held under conditions of security.

The CPT’s inspections focus on Corradino Correctional Facility (including the so-called Forensic Unit at Mount Carmel Hospital) and the detention centres, or closed accommodation complexes, for irregular immigrants at Safi Barracks and Lyster Barracks in Ħal Far.

The report unsurprisingly highlighted a litany of faults at Corradino Correctional Facility, the prime one being the need for the Paola prison to be completely refurbished. Problems identified also included overcrowded living conditions, with so-called single cells being used to accommodate two inmates, humidity, lack of light and proper ventilation as well as poor toilets and showers.

The CPT inspectors underlined the problem of prison overcrowding, with the number of inmates increasing substantially above the official capacity for which it had been set up.

Although the report omits this, there is also the problem of the complement of prison staff not reflecting the number of prisoners in their care.

The report recommended improvements to the education and rehabilitation of prisoners and also to their healthcare arrangements, including at the notorious Forensic Unit.

Although the official response of the (Nationalist) government to the report was defensive and made the best fist it could in the circumstances of the criticism raised, it must be said in fairness that the thrust of faults highlighted by the CPT have the ring of truth about them from what has emerged over the last four years or so about conditions in the CCF.

The new government has quickly focused on the need to deal with the situation it has found on taking office not only in the prison’s leadership and organisational structures, which have been lamentable, but also the staffing, rehabilitation and living conditions.

It remains to be seen whether the resources needed to turn around this poor institution will be provided.

As to the detention centres at Safi and Lyster, the CPT is no less scathing, even though it pointed out that it had received few allegations of deliberate physical ill-treatment of asylum seekers by detention officers. Nevertheless, the CPT did receive many complaints of “disrespectful and racist language” and excessive use of force by soldiers and police officers during disturbances, such as one which occurred a month before the CPT’s visit.

When it came to the physical conditions in the accommodation centres, the CPT acknowledged that, while there had been some improvements, there were still areas of overcrowding and lack of proper sanitary facilities.

Healthcare also needed improvement.

The conditions under which asylum seekers live in detention centres has long dogged Malta’s perfectly rational detention policy. It is one to which the new government should give closer attention.

While any government instinctively reacts defensively to any criticism levelled at its administration, there can be little doubt that, on the major issues raised, at Corradino and at Safi and Lyster, the CPT has highlighted weaknesses of which it and even we have long been aware and which need resolution.

It is to be hoped that the new government will make the necessary and, in some cases, long overdue improvements called for by this report.

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