Letters: Grim talk around jails should be replaced with a will to tackle main cause of crime – inequality

News that the Justice Minister is looking into the prospect of building a new prison at Thornton Hall is depressing.

This 165-acre parcel of land was bought by then justice minister Michael McDowell in 2005, for €32m. That worked out at about €194,000 per acre – an enormous sum.

It subsequently lay idle and has cost the taxpayer another €50m in planning and legal fees. Up to a couple of years ago, security patrols were €1,000 a week.

When are we, as a civilised people, going to get away from the idea of locking people up? There is so much literature around prison as a concept that one could stack many libraries with it.

The debate around the pros and cons can be emotive, especially for victims of crime. There is no doubt that society needs to be protected from the most serious offenders.

There is, however, a category of less serious offenders. The root cause of their transgressions is addiction to drugs and alcohol.

As an example, 61pc of inmates released from prison in 2017 had reoffended by 2020. Many of these offences were habitual theft and drug-related activity.

The majority of the prison population has never sat a state exam and over half had left school by the age of 15. People in Irish prisons are 23 times more likely to come from and return to seriously deprived areas. If you treat people like animals, they will behave like animals.

Surely the root cause of the problem is deprivation and lack of rehabilitation, both in prison and on release. There was a time in this country, not long ago, when thousands of people were locked away behind high walls in mental institutions.

The State recognised that this did not work and closed down many of these facilities in favour of alternatives, such as community care.

The idea of building more prisons is an easy-fix soundbite. In truth, prison building represents dreary, unimaginative thinking. It would be far better to build more schools and sports facilities in deprived areas.

Law and order is a typical hobby horse coming up to elections. It is laid out as being very black and white, but it’s not. It is complex and requires years of patience and investment.

Prison should be a last resort reserved for those who are a danger to society.

Joseph Kiely Letterkenny, Co Donegal

Many toddlers of today are Israel’s future enemies due to its bloody campaign

Jacob Mendlovic offers an opinion that Irish people are hostile to the state of Israel, (‘Israel is beset on all sides by foes and has always confronted its enemies’, Letters, April 26).

I would argue the hostility, if any, is towards Zionism. But much more so, it is aimed at the mass slaughter of people in the Gaza strip for the past six months.

The fact that these deplorable acts are at the hands of descendants of the Holocaust confounds all right-thinking people in the world, not just Ireland.

Violence begets violence. For six months, Israel has shamelessly created innumerable future enemies, many of whom are toddlers. There is no one nation, let alone tribe or clan, favoured by any god, irrespective of what name you call him/her.

Humans share the earth with the flora and fauna. Borders are in the mind and on maps. Tragically for this beautiful world, the danger is from those with borders in their minds.

Declan Foley Melbourne, Australia

Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, despite best efforts of Old Testament

Eugene Tannam’s letter ought to be put into greater context (‘Jewish people are far from interlopers; they have been in Palestine for 3,000 years’, Letters, April 25).

It is worth remembering the words of historian and geographer Herodotus. In the fifth century BC, he vividly described a multi-faith country larger than ancient Philistia that was located between Phoenicia and Egypt. He referred to this country as “Palaistine”.

The Palestinians are the indigenous people of Palestine sharing a multi-cultural past. Their local roots are deeply embedded in the soil of Palestine, which long proceeded the advent of Zionist settler-colonialism.

Until anachronistic European political Zionism at the turn of the 20th century, the Palestinian people included Arab Muslims, Arab Christians and Arab Jews living in harmony with each other.

However, the opportunistic emigres who colonise stolen Palestinian land are descended from converts to Judaism and bear no resemblance to the ancient Arab Jews, nor do they share a common culture or DNA with them.

Having exposed the implications of the ancient Israel invention, the Palestinian history can be freed from the constraints of the Old Testament/ Hebrew Bible, which is based on fictional myth narratives.

Such narratives include the legend of the “Israelites” and their conquest of “Canaan”. They are designed to underpin false consciousness and religious political dogmas. Daniel Teegan Union Hall, Co Cork

We must call Biden out on the ‘ironclad’ support of a regime killing children

There was a sense of despondency from watching Tánaiste Micheál Martin’s visit to the Rafah border crossing following his trip to Egypt and Jordan.

You could see it in his eyes and hear it in his words – the chilling belief that Israel will carry out its ground offensive in Rafah, where 2.3 million Palestinians are sheltering like rats, begging for food and life.

It is not a matter of if, but when Israel will exact more of its relentless revenge. Mr Martin said it wasn’t just a war on Hamas, adding that the people of Gaza are being “collectively punished”.

Your editorial captured the mood of Mr Martin’s visit to the region and the reality of what war has now become (‘Inflicting even more violence on people of Gaza is indefensible’, Editorial, April 25).

Civilians are now fair game, like combative soldiers. Their homes and streets are the battlefields in our immoral, depraved world.

But it’s the entrapment of the civilian population that makes one weep for the future of mankind. There is no real refuge for the innocent civilians, nor for our eyes witnessing the madness unfolding.

The Tánaiste must call out US president Joe Biden’s “ironclad” support of Israel.

It is wrong now and will always be wrong, long after the bodies are lifted from the rubble.

Ironclad will never be right under the blood of a dying child, Mr President.

Aidan Roddy Cabinteely, Dublin 18

Cooling of Arab aggression may have gone a long way towards preventing crisis

In discussing the current campaign in the Gaza strip, many readers might remember there were three states in Palestine before 1967, but no peace. Namely, these were Jordan, Israel, and Egypt, which ran Gaza as a military occupation.

Jordan treated its West Bank as equal to its East Bank. Since 2006 there have still been three states in Palestine: Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) fatuity and Hamas.

There is no peace because the Arab side – the PA and Hamas – can not get their act together and accept they have to leave Israel alone to be itself. If Israel can live with 20pc Arab citizens, why can Palestine not live with 10pc Jewish citizens?

Archbishop Desmond Tutu was correct when he stated that Israel will not have security by oppressing another people.

The problem is that he and Daniel Teegan are blind to the same for Palestine (‘Justice will not be served in Middle East while US and Israel direct actions’, Letters, April 25).

The Arab world wasted a lot of itself with the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Since then, it has oppressed Israel – the state and the diaspora – with boycotts, deportations, diplomatic sniping, border raids and drones.

If we are talking about law and justice, the Arab world, with Palestine included, have to own up. They can start by owning up to their own children.

They have not been law-abiding about UN 181 (Partition Plan for Palestine), nor 1701 (in relation to resolution of the 2006 Lebanon War), and many others.

War crimes committed by non-state actors are as much war crimes as those perpetrated by state forces. Nine-thousand Israelis draw pensions or benefits for past injury inflicted at the hands of Arab terrorists, guerillas etc.

The current campaign was opened by some vile Arab behaviour on October 7, 2023.

Frank Adam Prestwich, UK

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