Crime And Punishment

Sir, - Medb Ruane (Opinion, October 19th) pointedly and compassionately highlights the tough justice meted out to Sabrina Walsh…

Sir, - Medb Ruane (Opinion, October 19th) pointedly and compassionately highlights the tough justice meted out to Sabrina Walsh in the Court of Criminal Appeal last week. The sentence imposed on Ms Walsh for the theft of a handbag (without bodily assault) was reduced from nine to six years - stiff by any standards. It is an extraordinary sentence relative to at least one other imposed that same week.

Directly beneath the report of the Walsh case (The Irish Times, October 13th), you reported the same court's decision to reduce the sentence on a priest from 71/2 years to 18 months for the sexual abuse of two young boys over a period of seven years. Mr Justice O'Flaherty is reported as commenting that although there has to be punishment for such crimes, "we must also consider that no man must be given up as beyond redemption." No, indeed - but what about the young woman, Sabrina Walsh? By what criterion of justice or logic is she scape-goated and given an "exemplary" sentence for a crime against property, while "redemption" is extended to a man who has committed an infinitely more serious crime against the person? Overall, statistics and crime surveys confirm that women make up only a small proportion of offenders and typically commit less serious crimes than men.

However, research findings in the UK and North America consistently show that crimes committed by socially marginalised and economically disadvantaged women and girls - including women drug users, poor women, black women, prostitutes - are particularly harshly dealt with by the criminal justice system. Marginalised women are doubly punished: for breaking the law, and for transgressing the social rules which (still) specify "appropriate feminine behaviour".

Also on October 13th you reported an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions against an "unduly lenient" court decision to suspend sentences on two men for crimes involving the handling of stolen property valued at more than £100,000. The Court of Criminal Appeal decided to impose the sentences on the men.

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I hope the DPP will now make an appeal against the unduly harsh sentence against Sabrina Walsh. Otherwise, it is clear there is neither equality nor logic in our criminal justice system. - Yours, etc., Ailbhe Smyth,

Director, Women's Education, Research and Resource Centre, UCD, Dublin 4.