The deaths of Tanya Noonan and of two gardaí who were mown down on our public streets within the past few weeks by crazed young drivers, have shocked and saddened the nation. It is understandable in this situation that the cry goes out, "lock them up and throw away the key".
People are angry, they feel vulnerable, they are genuinely grief-stricken to think that innocent members of our society should have to suffer the ultimate abuse of having their lives snatched from them, not to mention also the price that their bereaved and sorrowing families have had to pay.
Calling for these youngsters to be locked up is understandable, yes, but it's not the answer.
In the first place, it won't bring back Tanya Noonan, Anthony Tighe or Michael Padden. It won't make their families any less bereaved and it won't make us as a nation any less vulnerable. In other words, it won't solve the current problem and it won't prevent similar episodes occurring in the future either. It's just not that simple.
Knee-jerk responses and (even understandable) rage-driven calls for draconian measures against joyriders serve no purpose except to express our rage. They don't actually stop the joyriding and neither would the proposed solution - lock them up or the opening of a detention centre at St Patrick's - because that stops those particular young people whom you have locked up, only for as long as they stay locked up.
It has no effect on all the other youngsters who could be doing the same thing tomorrow. All it does is further blight the lives of young men whose lives are already blighted and it does nothing to heal the situation that produced the problem in the first place.
We have always had poverty, but we haven't always had out-of-control children. This is a relatively new phenomenon and there are reasons for this. Today, the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than ever. Poor people feel much more marginalised and excluded and powerless. At the same time the trappings of wealth are screaming at them from everywhere. So too is violence in its many manifestations.
As well as this family life, neighbourhood and community networks have been loosening and breaking down over the past 15-20 years. In the past, if a child was unable to be cared for in their own family, they were cared for by the extended family or within the local neighbourhood. On top of this, we have not sufficient or appropriate residential care places for those who cannot stay in their own homes. When we add all these things together we have a situation that is out of control.
Blaming the parents is not an answer either. Children who are out of control are, by definition, no longer amenable to parental control. They should probably be in care in most cases, but at the same time as family life and neighbourhood support structures are crumbling, we no longer have the provision we need to care for such troubled children. Mothers who are desperate to have their children taken into care, to prevent them from running out of control, cannot have them cared for because there are no care places for them.
Not only are there more and more children out of control, but their problems become more complex and they become more and more difficult to care for. It is almost impossible to care for children like this, unless interventions are built into the system to assist the most disadvantaged families before the children become out of control.
The solutions do not lie in the hands of the young people themselves. They are unable to cope with life, which is why they are involved in such destructive behaviour in the first place. The solution doesn't lie in the hands of their parents either, also caught up in a situation beyond their control.
IT IS we as a society and as a nation who have to provide the solutions. The first step is to accept that this is not an isolated problem that can be solved as if it were a mechanical problem.
The notion that pain, suffering, poverty, deprivation, irresponsibility and misery can be removed by a rearrangement of external circumstances is simplistic and naïve. There are no simple solutions that can be applied to problems as deep as violence, crime and substance abuse.
Until we tackle the systematic and structural injustices and inequalities in our society and the value system which underpins them, we will continue to have children and young people who are out of control, because where we have gross inequality and a gaping gap between the poor, disadvantaged areas and the better-off areas, we will continue to create and maintain these problems.
There has been a huge investment in childcare facilities yet the situation isn't any better for many young people. A lot more needs to be done which will only work if we tackle the causes of the problem in the first place. This won't happen unless we make a positive choice to do it.
If we do not make this choice, we will continue to have children and young people who are out of control, creating havoc and suffering for themselves and for other people. The streets will continue to be unsafe, people will continue to be killed and all the draconian measures in the world won't prevent it.
Poverty is not inevitable, nor is inequality or injustice. Things can change but only if we are prepared to make a positive and radical choice, as a society, to tilt the balance in favour of the disadvantaged. As always, we get the society we create. Surely the causes of street crime should be a number one priority for this election?
Sister Stanislaus Kennedy is a Sister of Charity. Mary Holland is on leave.