Madam, - A man is beaten to death while in the "care of the State". And we learn from media reports that the prison system is a hotbed of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Now, where have we heard those words before? In heart-rending reports of abuse in orphanages and "correctional" institutions that dotted the country in what has come to be known as the "Hidden Ireland"; and in media references to the thousands of cases that have come before the Residential Institutions Redress Board.
But hasn't that "Hidden Ireland" been consigned to the dark and shameful pages of our past, giving way to a new openness and transparency about the way the State treats people entrusted to its care? Has there not been a strong public and political mood of "never again" in response to revelations of past wrongs in institutions? Yet, it is happening again, right now in 2006, to people under the State's "protection".
The supposed purpose of prison is to punish by depriving a convicted person of freedom for a specified period of time, and also to achieve a measure of reform and rehabilitation of the prisoner.
A judge doesn't send you "inside" to be terrorised daily, to have your life put in danger, to be sexually, physically, or emotionally abused, or indeed to have your health endangered by filthy conditions.
There is a temptation to forget about people who have been sentenced to a prison term. The notion that such people "get what they deserve" is quite prevalent.
Such sentiments are understandable in the cases of offenders who have committed horrific crimes such murder, vicious assaults, aggravated burglary, or rape. But we need to remember at all times that each person who is led away in handcuffs to serve a custodial sentence is some mother's son or daughter, a flesh-and-blood human being - like the man who was savagely murdered in the presence of other inmates in Mountjoy.
The State failed to protect him as it was obliged to do - just as it failed other prisoners who took their lives in prison or were killed by fellow inmates or were horribly abused while in the care of the State.
Until the harrowing issues affecting the Irish prison system are addressed effectively, I suggest that we stop referring to people released from prison as "convicts" or ex-prisoners. Let's call them what they really are: survivors of institutional abuse. - Yours, etc,
JOHN FITZGERALD,
Lower Coyne Street,
Callan,
Co Kilkenny.