Almost four years ago, an independent inquiry, led by a former director of Corradino Correctional Facility, submitted a most comprehensive report into the administration and operation of the prison. It exposed serious institutional shortcomings in the leadership, administration and management of the correctional facility in virtually every area of prison operations and made several recommendations for improvement.
Since then, there have been periodic indications that all is still not well at Corradino, with stories ranging from endemic drug abuse, to shortcomings in the rehabilitation regime, to the excessively high number of foreign prisoners awaiting trial. The picture of Corradino Correctional Facility as one of the Cinderellas of the government service persists.
The latest cause for concern arises over the relatively minor – though still important – issue of the prison ‘tuck shop’ where The Times has unearthed an apparently disturbing lack of control and supervision in the charges levied there for the sale of items to its, literally, captive market. A random sample of prices in the tuck shop has highlighted large profit-taking on individual items, ranging from 17 per cent to as much as 88 per cent more than would be paid by a shopper in the supermarket.
In its response to questions why such an apparently large discrepancy between prices in the market place and the prison tuck shop were allowed, the Ministry for Home Affairs said that the tuck shop was “stocked from items bought from small stores located in the Corradino area”.
“Stocking the tuck shop as though it were a family kitchen made sense,” the ministry said, “because the shop catered for a relatively small community of 600 inmates who can also obtain such items from their relatives.”
It pointed out that the shop ran at a small loss and could never hope to compete with supermarkets with their bulk buying methods.
The ministry’s explanation is fine – so far as it goes. But it exposes a typical bureaucratic complacency and a number of serious deficiencies.
The first and most important is that the procurement system in place appears to lack any proper process aimed at securing best value for money. The objective of such a system would be to ensure that the prices charged to this captive market were, as far as possible, the lowest available supermarket rate.
This would be fair and equitable, given that prisoners, especially the very large number of foreigners at the CCF, depend on the tuck shop for their daily necessities – such as toiletries, clothes, cigarettes, bottled water and small food items. Inmates have a small monthly allowance of about €40 and the tuck shop is their main daily source of supply. It is therefore only right and proper that the purchases they make reflect good value for money and are not seen as a rip-off.
The present overpricing problem has been allowed to fester for almost 20 years, according to prisoner advocacy groups. Both the present chairman of the prison board, Ivan Mifsud, and his predecessor, Mario Felice, have spoken powerfully of the inequity of the prison tuck shop procurement system, which has an effective monopoly over a 600-strong market and few overheads. But to no avail.
The bureaucratic inertia that has characterised the handling of this issue should cease. This is not a matter of making life softer for prisoners but of fair treatment.
Action to implement a fairer, more transparent, market-oriented system of procurement for the prison tuck shop should be introduced as soon as possible.