An appeal for changes in the prison system to allow constructive use of time in prison, with work training, education and personal development skills, was made yesterday by Dr Eamonn Walsh, auxiliary bishop in the Dublin diocese.
"No troublesome child improves by being locked in the attic. It does not work with prisoners either," Dr Walsh said in his homily at the Church of Mary Immaculate, Rathmines, Dublin, to mark the beginning of Prisoners' Week.
He said that the time was now ripe to focus on how prisoners were spending their time rather than on how much time they were doing. Sentencing of offenders had to be so much more than "security parking".