Madam, - The announcement of an additional 100 posts in the youth justice system is to be welcomed, but it sounds like more of the same from a system preoccupied with punishment rather than prevention ( The Irish Times, April 20th).
Most young offenders suffer from poor education. Many have severe difficulties in adapting to formal schooling. Practically all come from that pool of up to 2,000 youths aged between 12 and 15 years who have dropped out of formal schooling. The Department of Education effectively refuses to acknowledge their existence, believing that school is where they should be, and is unwilling to acknowledge the work done in community education programmes.
Properly funded alternative education programmes for disaffected young people have the capacity to change lives, helping them avoid the spiral of disengagement, boredom, mischief, anti-social behaviour, serious crime and detention. These programmes save the State millions.
As a fund-raiser for one such programme, which caters for 15 children to Junior Cert level, and which has been consistently ignored by the Department of Education, I despair at the pre-eminence of reactive, short-term thinking within our political system. For less than half the cost of keeping a youth in detention, 15 highly disaffected children can receive a complete education within their own community. But since it is not a formal school, the Department of Education just do not want to know.
The head of the Probation Service, Michael Donnellan, assures us that the Minister for Children's announcement shows that "we are willing to invest in community-based alternatives to detention". Why can we not first try to give young people what they really need, rather than seeking to put in place expensive controls that take effect after they have made their mistakes? Too often the mistakes of disaffected young people are a direct result of our mistakes in not responding appropriately to their plight. Youth injustice should be more thoroughly explored before investing in so called youth justice. - Yours, etc,
MARK HAMILTON,
Foster Avenue,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.