KEVIN WARNER,
Madam, - In penal policy and economic terms, the closure of Shanganagh Castle is a backward move.
A core principle of good penal policy is that prisons should be used as "a last resort", and also that the "depth" of imprisonment should be no more than appropriate. Such thinking is based on the recognition that imprisonment, while necessary sometimes, does tend to damage and further criminalise people. Like surgery, it must be used sparingly and only to the appropriate level.
These ideas are at the heart of our official policy: the Whitaker Report, the European Prison Rules, the Management of Offenders put out by Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, the expert group report on a new prison agency.
This approach is even more important in relation to young offenders. We imprison about 600 young men aged 16 to 21. It is vital that there be the option of an open institution so that some of these at least can go where "the detrimental effects of imprisonment" are minimised, and the focus is on education and resettlement. The closure of Shanganagh, our only open centre for this age group, indicates a prison system that has seriously lost its way.
There is a spin being put about that the numbers there are too low, but no adequate explanation is given as to why prison headquarters so under-use the facility. Internationally, it costs half as much or less to keep an offender in an open prison than in a closed one. And that is before you begin to measure the economic and human costs of greater exposure to the criminal culture, the drugs, the risks of self-harm and bullying that invariably go with incarceration in a closed institution.
Finally, a way out of this disaster for a badly advised Minister McDowell: if you absolutely have to get hold of some cash, why not just sell the two grazing fields and the soccer pitch to the front of Shanganagh and retain the core of the institution which lies to the back?
It would be better to keep it all, of course, and renew, enhance and fully use the place; but such a compromise would at least be preferable to most of us working with offenders. - Yours, etc.,
KEVIN WARNER,
(On behalf of Civil Service No. 1 Branch, IMPACT),
Nerney's Court,
Dublin 1.