Guilt by association

IN the Irish Examiner court case reports often refer to defendants as being “unemployed.”

Such stories make it seem that if one doesn’t have a job, he or she is of the criminal classes.

There are many thousands of decent, honest unemployed people who are law-abiding, and for newspapers to refer to certain defendants as unemployed is to stigmatise those who are guilty of nothing.

After all, people in employment have been known also to break the law.

Martin Ford

27 St Anne’s Terrace,

Sligo