Madam, - Eoin McMahon's and John Kenny's defence of Michael McDowell's massive prison expansion (August 18th) provide clear illustration of the rationale behind the Minister's latest escapade - the need to implement "feel-good" policies that serve public relations while failing to serve public need.
Contrary to the conjecture offered up by Messrs McMahon and Kenny, the Minister has in fact offered no evidence demonstrating why Ireland needs to increase its prison population by 25 per cent. Rates of serious, indictable offences in most categories are dropping. Yes, Irish prisons are overcrowded, but with whom? According to the Prison Service's own figures, two-thirds of annual committals are for non-violent offences against neither the person nor property (fines, traffic offences, drug possession, etc.).
It is suggested that hundreds are needlessly incarcerated because of Government failure adequately to resource community supervision by the Probation and Welfare Service (a situation recently criticised by the Auditor General). While Ireland has one of the lowest crime rates in Western Europe (5.2 per cent of Irish adults were victimised by crime in 2003, a figure well below the 20 per cent average found in most of Western Europe), the Minister would have us become the region's fourth largest jailer per capita.
Mr McMahon may well see this as taking advantage of "economies of scale". We see adding 1,000 unnecessary prison spaces, at an average cost of €85,000 annually, as a huge bloating of the prison bureaucracy - an ironic legacy indeed for a PD Minister.
Mr McMahon claims the IPRT "has chosen to economise with the facts". Quite the contrary: we are more than happy to review the evidence as it so clearly contradicts the personal opinion and conjecture upon which the Minister (and his supporters) rationalise this prison-expansion project.
Mr Kenny may well feel the IPRT is "churlish" for not congratulating Mr McDowell for "delivering". When the Minister abandons his infatuation with the failed US-style criminal justice policies of the 1980s, and delivers modern progressive policy based upon evidence and best practice, we will be most happy to do so. - Yours, etc.,
RICK LINES,
Executive Director,
Irish Penal Reform Trust,
Bloomfield Avenue,
Dublin 4.