Common sense is hard to define and harder legislate for. This is the dilemma which faces the Department of Education as it ponders the report from Trinity House on how it happened that a 15 year old boy, convicted days previously of attempted rape, was brought to the cinema, from which he absconded. In the wake of this event, there have been calls for policy changes to be made at a political level", in relation to such trips. Yet it is hard to see what policy changes can be made. There is nothing wrong with the principle of preparing young people near the.end of their sentences for their return to the outside world. What a trip to the cinema has to do with that is, another matter. Neither is there anything wrong, in a so called Christian society, with treating young prisoners with a measure of compassion. But what we are entitled to expect is that common sense and respect for the public interest will be applied to such situations as a matter of course.
When this does not happen - and it seems clear that it did not happen in this case - then we are left with the necessity to review policy and practice. It would be a mistake to confine this review to what happened at Trinity House. it must also look at what "happened in 1994 when this boy, then aged 13, was sentenced to one year in St Laurence's industrial school in Finglas. Why was he going home on weekend leave less than four weeks after that sentence, commenced?
It was during this leave that he took part in a vicious attack on a woman in his home town. This could not have been foreseen but the same questions arise again: is it in the public interest to send offenders on home leave less than a month after they are sentenced? is it a common sense thing to do? This boy had been given chances. Gardai had attempted to deflect him from the criminal justice system by working with him under the Juvenile Liaison Scheme. He spurned these chances. Yet within a month of going to St Laurence's he was getting the concession of home leave. What message did that give him?
Young offenders often come from extremely difficult backgrounds. When they finish their sentences many return to backgrounds full of dangers and pitfalls. if some strength of character, some sense of responsibility and some belief in their ability to change their lives is instilled into them while they are detained they have some chance of surviving the circumstances to which they will return. Does bringing them to the cinema within days of their conviction on serious charges, or sending them on home leave within weeks of being sentenced, help to do any of these things?
And what of the victims? We have a criminal justice system in which victims play a peripheral role. The offence committed against the victim triggers a process in which he or she is almost invisible. Victims are kept in the dark about what is happening and when it is happening. Many feel that the insult and the trauma they have suffered is entirely ignored by the criminal justice process. Attempts by bodies such as the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre to put victims closer to the centre of the process by allowing them legal representation are in most cases firmly rebuffed.