In 2012 the majority of male inmates were transferred from the old 1970s wings to two purpose-built wings – K and L. The move also signalled the end of slopping out – when prisoners had to relieve themselves in buckets in their cells and pour the waste away.
However, although the new wings have in-built sanitation facilities, La Moye’s outgoing prison governor Bill Millar says the prison has no choice but to run most of the jail’s rehabilitation and work training schemes in the dilapidated Seventies buildings that remain.
‘There’s still a lot of this prison where we have to make use of the original buildings from the 1970s, which are not fit for purpose – but they are all we’ve got,’ he said.
‘In one of the old accommodation wings where the cells are not in use, we’ve had to make use of the old rec room and the laundry room – that’s where our vocational bricklaying courses are now run because we don’t have proper facilities for that. And the library is in what used to be a weight-training room.
‘It’s very restrictive because we can only put very small numbers of prisoners into these work areas – four or five on a course at a time – and the buildings are dilapidated.’
He said that although some investment had been forthcoming, he would like to see future money ring-fenced so that all the buildings at La Moye are brought up to scratch.
‘To be fair I’ve had really good support from successive States administrations, but no government wants to invest in prisons because there will always be competition for funds from other areas,’ said Mr Millar, who is retiring from his post this month after ten years in charge at La Moye.
‘One of the most difficult challenges for La Moye – as with any other prison – is to secure funds for the ongoing development of the prison and to make sure it doesn’t deteriorate and become as dilapidated as that which existed here at La Moye when I came.
‘There is some funding reserved for [the Medium Term Financial Plan] from 2020, but the new States administration will be looking at the next strategic and capital investment plans and whether that money stays in place remains to be seen – I hope it does for the sake of the prison.’
He said there was a development plan still in place for the entire prison site – and bemoaned the fact that the States failed to invest in building a new prison years ago.
‘Under the development plan all the 1970s buildings would be replaced, and this development programme is probably half-way through.
‘But if you had gone for a purpose-built prison – and I think the fields across the road were once set aside at one point for a new prison – you would have built a new prison in less than two years. But it will cost at least three times as much to develop the prison the way it is happening now, than to have built a new one in one fell swoop. It’s being done over such a protracted time period.’
Bill Millar is the subject of the Saturday Interview in the Jersey Evening Post.
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