New law will make criminals out of children
Just like the Children’s Act 2001 (which failed to deliver), it is an answer, but it isn’t the best or most effective answer.
It will make criminals out of children and young people. Is this what our Government wants? Do they want to put our children in prison? Shame on them if they do. Don’t they know that telling children they are criminals eventually makes them believe they are. In St Patrick’s Institution three out of every four young people are re-offenders - so putting them in prison does more harm than good.
The new Criminal Justice Bill is doomed to failure. It’s just another knee-jerk reaction from an irresponsible Government that has become so intent on serving the needs of the economy it has lost all sight of the social and spiritual needs of the people.
The Criminal Justice Bill will fail to deliver and in a couple of years a more authoritarian or even totalitarian bill will be introduced. This will finalise the police state about which many far-seeing, concerned citizens have been warning us for decades. There is a better way, a far more effective way of changing the culture, but I’m afraid this Government will never find it.
Nora Bennis
16 Revington Park
North Circular Road
Limerick
