Lack of concern for victims denied

A Supreme Court judge has criticised media accusations of "soft" sentencing of criminals and comparisons with the treatment of victims.

Mr Justice Hugh Geoghegan said "it is an absurd idea that because a judge or other powers-that-be, demonstrate concern for the rehabilitation of a criminal, they are thereby showing lack of respect or lack of concern for the victim".

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the International Prison Chaplains' Conference in Maynooth on Saturday, he said the constant media contrasting of the two, was the "most damaging and dangerous" of "all the errors that are made in an ill-thought-out public perception of the criminal system".

He said "victim impact and the distress caused to a victim are important factors in sentencing. But equally important is the potential of rehabilitating the offender so as to prevent future crimes".

He added that "every time a convicted criminal has been rehabilitated successfully a benefit of untold value has been conferred on potential victims".

Mr Justice Geoghegan stressed that "the one clear message that should be got across is that rehabilitation is always to the benefit of the public even more than it is to the benefit of the prisoner".

In a homily at Mass for the conference yesterday, Cardinal Desmond Connell said "the needs of victims must be paramount in a justice system".

He added "this does not mean that justice must be vengeful or merciless. Rather it is the opposite. Healing of the damage done to the victim must become as important as prosecuting the criminal."

Many people were seriously damaged by so-called "minor crime". Somebody having their purse or wallet stolen could be severely traumatised. "In some cases the victims of crime spend the rest of their life in their own prison."

The head prison chaplain in the Republic, called for a parole system "completely independent of political interference, and under the auspices of the judiciary rather than the Department of Justice".

Father Fergal MacDonagh said that decisions on parole are made for "cosmetic political reasons rather than because it is the right thing to do".

Dr Peter Sarpong, a Ghanaian Archbishop, said that modern Africa had "wickedly invented a new type of imprisonment - preventive detention".

He said this was meant to protect the prisoner from the anger of those allegedly offended by him, but it was a "very clever camouflage for power-drunken leaders to get rid of citizens who have dared to challenge their authority".