The government has extended the term by which a board of inquiry had to submit an analysis into the procedures adopted in prison.
The government said on Saturday morning that a request for an extension is given to the board. The board, which was initially given 60 days to terminate its work, has now been given another two months.
Anton Grech is leading the inquiry board along with Janice Formosa Pace and George Grech, and the board has the responsibility to scrutinise several procedures within Malta’s prisons and which deal with prisoners’ physical and mental wellbeing.
The inquiry board is entrusted with scrutinising procedures surrounding the assessment of the mental and physical wellbeing of the inmates who would have just entered prison, and a study on the regulations imposed by the Correctional Services Agency, along with also scrutinising procedures relating to the assessment of the mental and physical wellbeing of the inmates during the course of their sentence and procedures adopted on prisoners returning to Corradino after being discharged from Mount Carmel Hospital.
It will also scrutinise the procedures, policies and regulations adopted by the Correctional Services Agency on the rehabilitation of inmates, and scrutinise measures on the prevention of suicides followed by the agency.
13 prisoners have died at Corradino in the last three years, while a number of horror stories – some including the use of a punishment chair and of solitary confinement as a form of mental torture – have also emerged.