The legality watchdog criticized Riihimäki prison for, among other things, “hogging”. According to the head of the prison’s unit, no prisoner’s health has been endangered due to the arrangements.
Parliamentary the deputy ombudsman has expressed his concerns about the health care of prisoners in Riihimäki prison.
During their inspection visits, the staff of the Office of the Ombudsman drew attention to the fact that the necessary health care for prisoners may not have been implemented due to a shortage of guards.
According to the inspection protocol completed in the summer, reception times agreed upon for prisoners have not been fulfilled or they have had to be canceled because there have not been enough guards in the prison to escort prisoners to receptions. Appointments have gone unfulfilled both for the prison’s own outpatient clinic and receptions outside the prison walls.
“The deputy ombudsman expresses his serious concern that the medical or dental treatment of the patients may not be carried out in a timely manner due to the lack or absence of guard resources,” states the inspection report of the prison polyclinic completed in August.
Deputy Ombudsman of the Parliament Pasi Pölönen ordered an inspection of Riihimäki prison at the end of last year. The inspections have been carried out in several parts during the end of 2022 and the spring of 2023, and the inspection reports have been completed during the spring and summer. The inspection protocol of the prison polyclinic was completed in mid-August.
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Reception times have not been fulfilled or have had to be cancelled.
Riihimäki prison unit manager Susanna Schugk-Laulumaa tells STT that due to the personnel situation in the prison, it has sometimes been necessary to contact the prison polyclinic and ask them to transfer non-urgent treatments. However, according to Schugk-Laulumaa, the prison is not aware of a single confirmed case of a prisoner’s health being endangered due to a lack of staff.
“You have to remember that we call an ambulance at a very low threshold,” he says.
According to Schugk-Laulumaa, prisons regularly have to make a choice about where to use guard resources. Among other things, occupational safety reasons, according to him, also limit how untrained personnel are used. On the other hand, he feels that in recent years, transportation outside prisons has increased, which binds the staff.
Schugk-Laulumaa adds that prison health care works within the framework of office hours, which is why prisoners’ health is taken care of on their own outside of office hours.
223-seater Riihimäki prison is one of Finland’s closed prisons. It is also known as a place where many prisoners connected to organized crime are housed. The prison also has several departments of enhanced supervision.
The deputy ombudsman of the Parliament also pointed out to Riihimäki prison that it keeps too many prisoners in cells. Based on international recommendations, the ombudsman has taken the position that prisoners should be allowed to be outside their cells for at least eight hours a day, and that meaningful activities should be organized for them during that time.
In a recent inspection, however, the eight-hour recommendation does not seem to be implemented in at least some of Riihimäki prison’s D wards, especially in enhanced supervision ward D4. According to a recent book, a person convicted of drug offenses has also sat in the same department Niko Ranta-aho. According to the book, he has completed his degree in economics studying only in the cell.
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According to Schugk-Laulumaa, prisons regularly have to make a choice about where to use guard resources.
Ombudsman inspections have previously criticized prisons for keeping people in cells too much.
“It’s true that by copying someone we don’t really achieve anything good,” Schugk-Laulumaa begins.
However, according to him, it is not enough to keep the doors open in the wards for eight hours, because then the safety of some prisoners can be compromised.
“We just have a situation like that, where we can’t organize reasonable activities for those eight hours,” he says.
According to the protocol of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, the lack of resources is not a legitimate reason to deviate from the eight-hour minimum recommendation. Schugk-Laulumaa knows this.
“Still, we know that these are not issues that we can solve with the prison’s own powers.”
The deputy ombudsman has asked Riihimäki prison to announce by the end of November the actions it plans to take due to the findings of the inspection. According to Schugk-Laulumaa, improvements have already been made in the prison to some of the issues that were noticed during the inspection.
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