Published Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Prisoners are bored and there is pressure on staff who deal with those most at risk of self-harm to do other jobs, Michael Maguire added.
His review followed the death of Colin Bell in August last year despite being on suicide watch.
The chief inspector of criminal justice called for dedicated warders to take responsibility for individual prisoners and flexible arrangements in allocating staff.
The number of guards is geared to the Co Antrim jail's custody of highly dangerous paramilitary inmates despite the fact that they are in the minority.
Mr Maguire said: "Fifty percent of prisoners reoffend within two years. Public protection is served by a modern prison regime which deals with these kind of issues.
"Locking people up for 23 hours a day, not giving them social interaction or not giving them purposeful activity isn't addressing this."
The 39-page report, which followed the original report of an unannounced inspection of Maghaberry in January, made 10 recommendations. It accepted that there had been progress on immediate issues like taking out ligature points in cells.
But Mr Maguire wants to see more attention paid to vulnerable prisoners' psychological needs and skills training.
His report said there were differences between official Prison Service policy on safer custody and activity on the ground.
Safer custody was downgraded when other matters were deemed of higher priority and the agreement between the Prison Officers' Association (POA) and the authorities on allocation of staff made safer incarceration difficult to manage.
Industrial action by warders also impeded change and reducing violence or bullying had not received sufficient attention due to the emphasis on suicide prevention.
Security Minister Paul Goggins said the Prison Service had developed an action plan and accepted there was more to do.
Changes planned include appointing personal officers by 2011, reducing violence and ensuring staff are trained to work with vulnerable prisoners. Additional staff are to be recruited to support those with mental health problems.
Mr Goggins said: "It will be challenging, but my expectation is that a year from now, when the Criminal Justice Inspectorate carry out their follow-up inspection, there will be much further progress to report."