Interim director of the Riihimäki prison Tommi Saarinen says officials plan to change their daily routines and to tighten internal surveillance following the death of a prisoner at the hands of other inmates Thursday. Four other inmates were detained on suspicion of having committed the crime.
According to Saarinen prison officials will also be re-evaluating the balance between the use of technology and human intervention.
“We had a morning staff meeting where it was clear that follow-up procedures were needed,” Saarinen said.
“We will have to consider how we monitor and where we monitor and whether or not we can monitor people as needed. Changes to our daily routines will surely mean that when we don’t have staff in a block we can’t rely entirely on technology and we will have to re-think this,” the prison director said.
He added that in light of Thursday’s inmate death prisoners will no longer be allowed free movement throughout the prison compound without a guard present.
Prison violence not unusual
Authorities report up to 100 cases of prison violence annually in Finland. In Riihimäki fewer than ten occur in the space of a year, Saarinen said.
“We do see violence in prison, but we don’t see very many such extreme cases, they are usually not as serious,” he added.
Saarinen said that police are continuing investigations into Thursday's incident, including interrogation of the four suspects.
Cameras no substitute for prison guards
Antti Santamäki, a prison guard with more than 20 years experience at Riihimäki said he was concerned about prisoner safety.
“Convicts are more hardened and currently all prisons are affected by savings programmes. Security is also suffering,” Santamäki remarked,
Speaking as second deputy chief shop steward of the prison guards’ association, Santamäki said that camera surveillance simply isn’t enough in overcrowded prisons.
“If more prisoners are admitted and prisons are closed then conditions become more crowded. It gets on the nerves of prisoners and staff when they have to exist in small spaces. Guards also have to multitask and security suffers,” he noted.
Santamäki said that while there is a lot of technology deployed to secure the prison environment it can’t replace human eyes.
“The presence of a guard helps calm things down. At the moment we don’t have an adequate prison guard presence for this level of prison. We should have the resources to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” Santamäki concluded.
Justice Minister Anna-Maija Henriksson has called for a review to determine how to improve prison security. The last time a prison was killed while serving a sentence was in 2005.