Bailey the cocker spaniel has been released from Magilligan Prison in Co Derry.
One of three rehabilitation “support dogs” in the Northern Ireland prison system, he has been at the centre of an increasingly bizarre political row over the past month.
Animal charities had raised concerns about Bailey’s welfare and the use of prison support dogs in general. These concerns were taken up by the Ulster Unionist Party and directed at Alliance justice minister Naomi Long, who strongly rebutted them, as did the Northern Ireland Prison Service.
On Monday, the prison service said Bailey had been moved to a family home, as police had received a threat he would be harmed to embarrass Magilligan’s governor.
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This sinister development makes the story no laughing matter, but it has highlighted an odd feature of Northern Ireland politics: prison issues are normally a dog that does not bark.
It might be imagined prison issues would interest Northern Ireland, given their prominence during the Troubles and the peace process. The opposite appears to be the case.
Perhaps prisons are still too subconsciously associated with the past and hence not to be discussed in polite company. Ordinary decent debate on the subject is largely absent, certainly compared to Britain and the Republic.
The Bailey saga revealed a lack familiarity with basic arguments for and against imprisonment as a form of punishment, rehabilitation and public protection. Beyond animal welfare concerns, whether misplaced or not, it was clear many people felt Bailey should not be in Magilligan because dogs are nice and prisoners should not have nice things.
Long and the prison service had to argue against this from first principles, for the benefit of the public, the media and other politicians.
This is particularly lamentable considering the effort that went into devolving policing and justice. It was finally delivered by the 2010 Hillsborough Castle Agreement, 12 years after the Belfast Agreement, much of that time spent in fraught arguments that dominated politics in Northern Ireland and drew in prime ministers and presidents.
Sinn Féin would not “recognise” the police, and unionists feared Sinn Féin would have influence over the courts. This is why the justice minister is almost always from the Alliance Party – that was the compromise unionists and republicans eventually reached.
Prisons went largely unmentioned throughout this 12-year argument, yet it in the end it was only about them.
Police, courts and prosecutors continue to operate independently of Stormont, an outcome that was never in serious doubt. The prison service is the only major element of the criminal justice system placed under even arms-length ministerial authority. Stormont’s justice minister is in effect the minister for prisons, plus some bits and pieces.
Apathy about this has one positive explanation: Northern Ireland’s three prisons are generally well-run and in reasonable condition. There is not the imperative to discuss them that comes when prisons are chaotic, overcrowded and falling apart.
The prison service’s good inspection ratings are the culmination of 15 years of improvement. Stormont launched a prison reform programme as part of the Hillsborough Castle Agreement, based on expert recommendations and oversight. It was largely completed on schedule by 2016, during which it also got costs down by 27 per cent. This success has scarcely been noticed outside its own field.
The programme’s focus was managerial, not ideological. It aimed to transition Northern Ireland from a Troubles-era system to a normal system, as defined by international best practice and human rights standards. Devolution was not taken as an opportunity to ask fundamental questions about whether this is what Northern Ireland wanted or if it would like to do things differently, and nobody has really cared to ask since.
Recent controversies over alleged leniency by the courts have started a debate about sentencing, and revived a decade-old question about whether Northern Ireland needs a sentencing guidelines council. It is the only jurisdiction in the UK and Ireland without one.
This debate has shown much of the public and their political representatives strongly support the sanction of imprisonment – a perfectly legitimate view. However, there seems to be little matching understanding that more use of custody requires more investment in a high-quality prison system.
Good prison conditions can be justified on ethical grounds, or as a prerequisite for any hope rehabilitation. But even if you are unmoved by either of those arguments, prisons must be civilised environments for purely pragmatic reasons, to retain experienced staff and to avoid releasing inmates who are more dysfunctional than when they were admitted.
One sign of understanding this would be to have no instinctive objection to a prison having a dog.
Magilligan is a medium security facility with 500 inmates and plenty of green outdoor space. The question Bailey’s story ought to have raised is why it only had one dog.
