Sir, - The Minister for Justice has announced that a prison for 400 offenders will be built at Port Laois in the nest two years. The private sector is being asked to erect this, which means, of course, that we, the tax payers, will be paying rent for it far and above what it will cost to put up. Will we have an opportunity to see the plans? We never saw the plans for the women's prison currently being built at Mountjoy, though a number of groups requested this.
Many offenders come from areas in and around Dublin where unemployment is high, education low, and parenting skills inadequate and often violent. How are such families going to afford visits to Port Laois? Will there be special travel arrangements made for them, paid by the State? Let us hope that the plane include a fully equipped Visitors' Centre, with low-priced canteen and children's creche and playground.
What sort of prison will it be? Will it repeat the mistakes of the past and present, i.e. containment and boredom, or will it have a staff trained in therapeutic ideas, who can run discussion group sessions and individual therapy? More advanced thinkers in the Prison Officers Association are well aware of the advantages and research findings from prisons of this kind, such as Grendon Underwood, near Oxford. The recidivism rate is lowered, and of further crime is committed, it is of a minor nature.
But why do we want more prison spaces? There is overcrowding and prisoners are being released early to allow others to enter from the courts. Surely it is time we moved into a greater use of community service, with attendance at drug treatment centres and preparation for work, so that these young men can see a brighter future as a part of Irish society, rather than as unwanted detritus to be locked up any old where. Getting them off the streets is merely building up more trouble on their release, when the bitterness has increased a hundredfold and they have learned greater skills at the "university of crime".
We call ourselves a Christian country. I appeal to your readers to think more carefully and deeply about the needs of the young men from the ghetto areas of deprivation and let us turn their lives into something productive and enjoyable, rather than locking them up because of the fashionable call for zero tolerance. Yours etc.,
Helen Haughton,
Sandyford, Co. Dublin.