Prison Sentences

[Insane Bolt]

I would prefer that those sent to prison are 'employed'  in something constructive rather than locked in a cell for 23 hours.....but again I say as it stands prison is no deterrent.

No you are quite right however criminologists will tell you that no prison system in the world is a particularly good deterrent.

True, the death penalty hasn't stopped America having the largest prison population rate.

[nrico2006]

I would prefer that those sent to prison are 'employed'  in something constructive rather than locked in a cell for 23 hours.....but again I say as it stands prison is no deterrent.

No you are quite right however criminologists will tell you that no prison system in the world is a particularly good deterrent.

True, the death penalty hasn't stopped America having the largest prison population rate.

People will commit crime irrelevant of the deterrent. In my opinion prisons should be places of punishment and nothing else.

[Ambrose]

Difficult to see how these guys can "atone" for, say, killing someone.  Usually starts off as murder, then we go for manslaughter. Bargain a bit & it's reduced to affray / assault. By the time it gets to court, it was entirely  the deceased's fault & the perpetrators can then walk free.

I've never seen that happen in reality. Yes there are media portrails of that kind of thing happening and no doubt there are cases that ultimately proceed as manslaughter when they were clearly murder because murder is so hard to prove but I've yet to come across a clear case of murder from which perpetrators walk free due to bargains or blaming the accused. To suggest it's the usual way these things happen would certainly not be my experience.

There was a case in Keady circa 1995 where three cousins were charged with the murder of a young barman. From memory the deceased may have owed the older of the three a small amount of money for rent, but it ended up with him lying dead at the bottom of a railway bridge. An open and shut case as far as the locals were concerned, witnessess, cctv etc but they eventually ended up being charged with affray and received community service even though all three had originally been charged with murder. Maybe one or other branch of the security services needed to keep one of them out, who knows, but these things do happen.

[Tover28]

Fair play, and the best of luck to you.  I've seen kids from school end up serving sentences,  usually drugs-related.  Only one or two were what I would have considered bad eggs, but mostly they were naive or easily led- basically decent kids that fell in with a bad crowd.
Environment has a huge impact- many times I've seen kids in first year who are bright, intelligent and ambitious or competitive in class gradually fall by the wayside.  You hear stories a couple of years after they leave school, and think what might have been.

It's a very complex concept.  I grew up in a stable, relatively comfortable home environment where there was a heavy emphasis on right and wrong, and I was for a long time along the lines of do the crime, do the time, and that that punishment should be harsh and a deterrent.
Gradually I've come to realize it's not so black and white.  I don't know a whole pile about the law, sentencing and prison. I think for a lot of people, the view of prison life and prisoners ranges from a sympathetic notion of the nobility of Andy Dufrense and Red in the Shawshank Redemption to outrage over sensationalist exposes in the Sunday World.

Again I wish you the very best.  I'm not making assumptions about what you are studying or your plans in life, but I do think that someone with your experience would have a huge role to play in helping young offenders, potential young offenders or people already in prison. 
As Red said: 'Rehabilitated? Well now, let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means...'

Thanks. I am from a tough enough area in Dublin. Growing up I would have known people who had Dads in prison and then people starting to go inside themselves. It wasnt that unusual.

My family though were good and hardworking. My 2 older brothers were never really in any trouble. They left school and one joined the Army and the other did an apprenticeship.

I actually did the best of us at school and was one of about 6 or 7 in my year to go to college and my family were real proud of me. I didnt know anybody else where I went and struiggled a bit. I scraped through first year and stopped going about halfway during second year. I had been in trouble for minor things but after dropping out I was drinking alot and gambling and things got worse.

When I was in school I was pretty good - had the odd scrap and got caught smoking a few times but that was it. When I was looking at prison the first time I went back to school to get references I could tell that the principal was surprised. We had got that speech one day about by the time you are 30 half of you will either be dead or in prison but didnt think it would happen tome.

I didnt really think about prison when I was doing what I did but once I thought I was going I admit I was shitting it. I was 21 so still pretty young and had heard plenty of stories about The Joy and what it was like but there were lads around who knew lads in there at the time and I got told they would keep an eye out for me and that was what happened.

Thats the thing with prison. You are all going through the same and if you have something in common like being from the same area you stick together unless there is some fighting going on between different groups but I stayed away from all that.

It was good getting out after that first sentence but looking back that changed me. I still had a part suspended sentence hanging over me ad obviously had no job. I tried to join the Army like my brother as they thought that would be good for me but got rejected because of my ciminal record andit was impossible to get any type of decent job but managed to stay out of trouble while I still had the suspended sentence.

In some ways I found I got more respect around because I had been in prison. I hanged around with some of the lads I had been in there with when they got out and that got me into bother later on and part of the reason I ended up back in there with a longer sentence.

Last time was different though. It was my 3rd time going inside (twice here and once for 10 days in America when on the J1) and I wanted to change. Seeing my Mam crt when she visited me, getting told my Dad had had a heart attack and not being allowed visit him, missing my first nephew being born all got to me and seeing things like a lad try to hang himself in his cell all made me decide things wer going to change and since getting out 2 years ago lucky they have and have kept out of trouble.

I hope I never do anything to end up back inside but never can be sure and with my record I know if I do anything anyway serious thats what will happen.

I know I went on but thought Id give my view on this for what its worth

[Tover28]

Fair play to you lad. I know how shitty it is in some of those places and the whole slopping out. business that went in was degrading to say the least. I am taking a number of cases against the prison authorities in respect of some of the stuff that has happened and continues to happen in the prisons. The big thing is that there is no real effort to rehabilitate. The Penal reform groups that have been banging on about this for years are not getting any real hearing. There has been incremental change but it is very slow and the IPS do not want to give ground on anything. Prison is needed but there needs to be an overhaul of how it is done.

Again agree with most of that. First time I was in Muntjoy it was an absolute kip - my wing anyway. And the slopping out was disgusting for everybody even the screws.

People give out about jail in America but the time I was there it was clean and had toilets in the cell which was not the way it was in Mountjoy then

[Tover28]

Prison isn't supposed to be easy....it's supposed to be a deterrent. By your own admission it took you 2 prison terms before you decided to change....good that you have changed things around, but the choices you have made now in relation to college were available before. Life is about choices.....and the subsequent consequences.

Not saying it should be easy but its note as easy as peopple who have never been there make out.

If I could go back 10 years and change things I would believe me. I made plrnty of mistakes and hurt people but am older and more mature now and thinking about the future. I am going to be a Dad in 3 months now and thats a huge thing for me. I never want my son to have to deal with having me in prison and hope he never makes the same mistakes as me.

[Main Street]

I would prefer that those sent to prison are 'employed'  in something constructive rather than locked in a cell for 23 hours.....but again I say as it stands prison is no deterrent.

No you are quite right however criminologists will tell you that no prison system in the world is a particularly good deterrent.

True, the death penalty hasn't stopped America having the largest prison population rate.

People will commit crime irrelevant of the deterrent. In my opinion prisons should be places of punishment and nothing else.

Prison is already place of punishment. Deprivation of liberty is the punishment. Inflicting further punishment on the imprisoned as a means of retribution is patently unproductive on every level. Prisons where prisoners work, take responsibility for their wing, have access to education and skills learning, have private contact with family or friends one full day weekly, those prisons have the lowest recidivism rates by a country mile.

[Insane Bolt]

Prison isn't supposed to be easy....it's supposed to be a deterrent. By your own admission it took you 2 prison terms before you decided to change....good that you have changed things around, but the choices you have made now in relation to college were available before. Life is about choices.....and the subsequent consequences.

Not saying it should be easy but its note as easy as peopple who have never been there make out.

If I could go back 10 years and change things I would believe me. I made plrnty of mistakes and hurt people but am older and more mature now and thinking about the future. I am going to be a Dad in 3 months now and thats a huge thing for me. I never want my son to have to deal with having me in prison and hope he never makes the same mistakes as me.

Again I repeat it's not supposed to be easy. It obviously didn't put you off given you were in jail 3 times. Tell me if jail time meant hard labour and one meal a day would you still have done what you did? I'm glad you have matured and wish you all the best with the birth of your son.....nothing like it for making one wise up.

[Tover28]

Again I repeat it's not supposed to be easy. It obviously didn't put you off given you were in jail 3 times. Tell me if jail time meant hard labour and one meal a day would you still have done what you did? I'm glad you have matured and wish you all the best with the birth of your son.....nothing like it for making one wise up.

On the question about hard labour etc. would have to say less likely but it wasnt if I was planning to do what I did and was weighing up what if I got caught. I didnt plan on going back to prison because it wasnt that bad or anything like that.

Thanks about becoming A Dad. Agree with you totally on that anyway

[haranguerer]

Really good to get your perspective and story Tover - best of luck in the future.

[imtommygunn]

Tover your story is very interesting cheers for that.

One thing to pick you up on... You have repeated a few times now about not planning to go back to prison but it wasn't that bad or anything like that. It isn't my business what you did but most peoples definition of "wasn't that bad or anything like that" wouldn't be something which would get you put in prison...

(P.S. Sorry not trying to have a go it's just the lingo gets me a wee bit as someone wanting to /having turned themselves around.)

[MoChara]

The older 3 strike policy in California didn't seem to work as a deterrent, where if you had been caught on a third time for even a misdemeanour you would get a life sentence.

25 years for stealing a bike seems like it should have been a strong deterrent, as a society we're better off trying to solve why these people are turning to crime than paying for them to sit in cells for the rest of their lives, both cost money but I know which is my preferred option.

[brokencrossbar1]

The older 3 strike policy in California didn't seem to work as a deterrent, where if you had been caught on a third time for even a misdemeanour you would get a life sentence.

25 years for stealing a bike seems like it should have been a strong deterrent, as a society we're better off trying to solve why these people are turning to crime than paying for them to sit in cells for the rest of their lives, both cost money but I know which is my preferred option.

That has always been my argument with people when discussing the criminal law system. It is an industry in itself anyway and governments have created a 'security' sectors which absolves them of any real responsibility. The breakdown of the social system at a very base level is the biggest contributor to crime than anything and if more money was invested in the ground level
I'm deprived areas then there would be a significant drop in crime in my very humble opinion

[trailer]

It's societies way of dealing with the problem. But you need to solve it. However that's really difficult when you are looking at 3rd and 4th generation unemployed, drug abuse, low income etc etc. Definitely encouraging these people not to bring children into the world they cannot support or look after is a pretty good place to start.

[magpie seanie]

It's societies way of dealing with the problem. But you need to solve it. However that's really difficult when you are looking at 3rd and 4th generation unemployed, drug abuse, low income etc etc. Definitely encouraging these people not to bring children into the world they cannot support or look after is a pretty good place to start.

"These people"