Almost all women in Irish prisons - 95% - are serving sentences for committing petty crime such as shoplifting, failure to pay fines, or handling stolen goods:
File photo of gardaí outside Mountjoy Prison, where the Dóchas Centre is located Image: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie File photo of gardaí outside Mountjoy Prison, where the Dóchas Centre is located Image: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie ALMOST ALL WOMEN in Irish prisons are serving sentences for committing petty crimes, an analysis of statistics shows.
Mary O’Connor, governor of the Dóchas Centre, a medium security female prison in Dublin, said that the women serving sentences are some of the most vulnerable women in the country, and some of them have very complex needs.“Needless to say people who come into the criminal justice system have higher than average issues of trauma, of addiction, of mental health issues,” he said.
She also referred to a lack of residential rehabilitation services. “Women have a unique problem; [there are] very few residential treatments for women and some of the women have children,” O’Connor said.Teresa Clarke, regional manager of Mountjoy Prison visitors centre agrees. “95% of [women in prison] should be in addiction or mental health services… putting them into prison serves absolutely no purpose,” she said.
Petty crimes include shoplifting, a failure to pay fines and possession of drugs, according to the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Ireland has ten men’s prisons and two women’s prisons – the women’s wing at Limerick Prison and the Dóchas Centre at Mountjoy Prison.Some of the single rooms at the prison have had to double up with bunk beds as a way of dealing with overcrowding.An empty corridor in the Dóchas Centre Source: RollingNews.ie
Williamson explained that finding alternatives to custody to address these issues is ‘at the heart of probation’. Unconscious bias, according to the Implicit Association Test conducted by the University of Washington and Yale, is a “tool that measures the unconscious roots of prejudice”. “I have to say a lot of judges aren’t [streetwise], you don’t have to be,” Hussey added. But Meyler feels that better knowledge and understanding of the life circumstances of these women, along with regular skills updates, would be beneficial to the judicial system.
Asked if there are other alternatives, Meyler said that community service was one option open to judges, but often the terms of the community service were not flexible enough to allow for the fact that some of the women had child caring responsibilities. Dr Christina Quinlan, Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice in De Montfort University in the UK, wrote in her 2011 book ‘Inside Ireland’s Women’s Prisons’ that a distinguishing feature of women’s imprisonments is and has been the “imprisonment of poor marginalised women for crimes related to poverty and addictions.”
Clarke said many women would not want their children visiting them in prison – especially when they are in for such short sentences. The children could be told that their mother has gone abroad to work or for medical treatment. “It’s one thing a child visiting their father in prison but, even in today’s age, for a child to visit their mother in prison it’s different, society views it as different,” she said.
Ireland Latest News, Ireland Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Thousands of Irish motorists caught using phone while driving this yearAlmost 5,000 Irish motorists caught using mobile phone while driving in first two months of 2019
Read more »
Shocking number of Irish motorists admit to speeding in recent weeksAlmost 7% of Irish drivers also admitted to using their mobile phone while driving recently
Read more »
DCC forfeited almost €90k in library fines to boost membershipsDublin City Council forfeited almost €90,000 in unpaid library fines in 2018 in an effort to boost memberships, newly released figures have shown.
Read more »
‘Almost every room was destroyed’: Landlord finds ‘two years of rubbish’ piled up in Cork houseRenovation of property will cost thousands of euro after discovery of rotting material prompted by neighbour’s complaint of rat infestation
Read more »
‘Almost every room was destroyed’: Landlord finds ‘two years of rubbish’ in Cork houseRenovation of property will cost thousands of euro after tenants allowed rotting material to pile up in property
Read more »
Almost 5,000 drivers caught using phone in first two months of 2019Almost 5,000 people caught using phone while driving in first two months of 2019
Read more »