While the Fianna Fail Party (senior Coalition Government partners 1997-2010) made Mandatory reporting of child rape an election promise in 1997, there was no legislation in operation for the mandatory reporting of child rape under Fianna Fail’s 14 years of Governance. The new Coalition Government of Fine Gael/Labour has promised to introduce the mandatory reporting of child rape/abuse. Child Rape is not new in Ireland it has been officially known about since the Carrigan Report in 1930, however, the Catholic Church among other interested parties does not want Mandatory reporting of child rape on the statute books. Fianna Fail brought great relief to those thousands of persons in society who continued to rape children and depend on the concealment of their crimes to quench their lust. Non Mandatory reporting of child rape is to the sexual deviant, what the safe house is to the terrorist.Prior to the introduction of the 1997 Criminal Justice Act there existed in common law the crime of ‘misprision of felony’. Misprision of Felony simply meant that if a person had knowledge of a serious crime having been committed by another person but had concealed or failed to report such crime to the Gardai they could be prosecuted. However, knowing that many within the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church and Civil Society could fall upon this sword, if the dark secrets within the Church were fully exposed, Fianna Fail upon taking power in 1997 quickly removed it from the statue books. The 1997 Criminal Justice Act created two new offences but neither had the scope of misprision of felony, this was the intention of the legislator, now Bishops, Cardinals and Sinn Fein Presidents could openly admit that they had concealed child rape and forced children to sign letters of secrecy about their rapes at the hands of the Catholic Church and these Bishops, Cardinals and Sinn Fein Presidents would not face prosecution for their crimes against God and man.Under section 7(2) of the 1997 Act, an offence occurs where a person knows that someone else has committed an arrestable offence (punishable by five years or more), and does without reasonable excuse any act with intent to impede the apprehension or prosecution of that other person. This new offence under the 1997 Act requires the doing of a positive act with the intent to impede prosecution, so a mere failure to report a crime, including child rape, is not sufficient for prosecution. The other offence created under the 1997 Act, section 8, which replaces a different common law offence of ‘compounding a felony’. It applies only where a person knows that an arrestable offence has been committed but agrees for some consideration (i.e. money) not to disclose that information. Again section 8 would require more than the act of failing to report the rape of a child in order to be prosecuted. It is also worth noting that Section 15, of the 1997 Criminal Justice Act, applies the abolition of the misprision of felony retrospectively, should there be any doubt why this law was removed from the statute books. How many times have Ministers said that laws could not be applied retrospectively in other matters, yet it would appear that it could be done to help Bishops, Cardinals and other criminals in our society?Such is the moral bankruptcy of the relationship between the Catholic Church and their political bedfellows in Fianna Fail that we had legislation that put a mandatory obligation on banks to report suspicious monetary transactions but we had no mandatory reporting of child rape. In 1990 the Law Reform Commission argued that failure to report child sexual abuse should be made a specific crime for particular categories of people, such as GPs, Health Board staff and so forth. Successive Governments have continued to fail children. Shanahan, K. (1992) reports on a survey of 20 County Wicklow based GPs who replied to a questionnaire on incest, eleven of these GPs stated that they had come across cases of incest in their practice, but only three of the eleven had reported onwards. This survey could have been carried out in any part of Ireland then or now and the results would be the same, GPs particularly in provincial towns, town lands and villages who are dependent on a small number if extended families for their bread and butter are not going to rock the boat over the rape of a child. Indeed it has been shown here that GPs have helped silence child rape victims by feeding those victims unlicensed-mind-altering-drugs.In 1991 when it became clear that there were going to be a flood of allegations of child rape against Homophiles and so forth within the Catholic Church, the Fianna Fail Government under the leadership of Charles Haughey, moved quickly to reduce the sentence for sexual assault (which included buggery) from ten years down to five in the Criminal Justice Act 1991. It is easy to see why some Government Ministers jumped on the ban wagon when certain high profile (non-religious) cases came before the courts, this clearly a case of those shouting loudest, do so to conceal their own crimes. It is clear that when people like former Justice Minister, John O’Donoghue were filling the tabloid press with his nonsense about Zero Tolerance, it insured that his expense accounts were not being examined too closely. How many children could have been protected with the vast fortunes squandered by O’Donoghue and others whose only interest was their own self-indulgence?Whatever the true extent of sexual crime it is clear that anyone who believes that punitive legislation and secrecy is a cure for what is in most cases of child sexual abuse, a compulsive disorder, are without education and knowledge of the subject. Those who advocate punitive legislation and secrecy as key elements of Child Protection, simply condemn thousands of children to increased intimidation and cruelty, they further bury the debate for another generation, which may well be their intention. Dr Ian O’Donnell explains that research has shown that the public usually wants tougher responses to crime when presented with general questions such as whether they think the courts are too lenient:However, when given detailed information about particular cases, so that they can understand the consequences for victims and the motivations of offenders, the range of responses is wider. As a rule the overall level of punitiveness decreases as understanding grows. Inflammatory language and knee jerk responses, while understandable when passions are high, are out of place in a debate about saving human lives and improving public safety. It is then that policies introduced in haste could leave a bitter – and expensive – legacy for future generations.It was this very type of knee jerk reaction that allowed the Sex Offenders Act 2001 to be introduced, in the face of opposition from the Attorney General. The loop holes left and which remain in the 2001 Act, allowed convicted rapist Paddy O’Driscol to legally give no fixed abode as his address to the Gardai. The Gardai could not monitor O’Driscol and he soon raped another young woman in Cork, he is now serving 18 years for that savage attack, but it could have been prevented if John O’Donoghue had not introduced legislation that is flawed and which he was told by the Attorney General was flawed.In Ireland today the rape, sexual molestation, cruelty and neglect of children is manifest much more so in the prevailing economic conditions and social decay that follow from that. Sexual crime against children pervades every level of society, with no quarter of professional, vocational, community or voluntary exempt as so graphically highlighted by Operation Amethyst, does anyone think that a thirst for child rape will be quenched by a hearty court fine or community service order. All allegations of child rape and sexual abuse should be reported to the Gardai, those allegations must then be addressed by way of a multi-disciplinary team, all persons confirmed as having sexually abused children or concealed the abuse of children must be placed on a national Garda data base for the sole purpose of providing best practice in child protection and community safety. It may well be that Ireland is not ready to face up to the truth about child rape and sexual criminality in general. It clearly suits certain groups and individuals, particularly those who have been complicit in child rape, particularly but not exclusively those within the Church and State, to continue to persecute the few, while the many that have been confirmed as having raped and sexually abused children (96%) walk away without sanction.Fianna Fail in particular, but not exclusively, failed to modernise and create a thorough going secular morality with respect to sexual matters in the spheres of health, education and the law. This would be a first step, real step, towards addressing sexual crime and deviance in Ireland. We live in hope in 2011 that the new Coalition Government under the leadership of Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore can bring forward legislation to ensure that the reporting of child rape/abuse is made mandatory and that Children First is a core Government policy and not simply a populist sound-bite.[1] See, RTE 1, The Limits of Liberty, 31st May 2010.[2] See, ‘Domestic Violence and Gender’, (2002) The Irish Times, 17th December, p13.[3] See, report on Dr Woods, Sunday Independent (2002), Veraik, R. The Irish Independent (2001) and Jones, B. The Sunday Times (2002).[4] “Snooker Star cleared of rape”, Irish Independent (2002), “Garda Inspector cleared of sexual assault”, Irish Times (2002), “Three men cleared of rape”, Irish Independent (2002), “Hamilton’s maintain their total innocence”, The Sunday Tribune (2001), In August/Sept 2002, a 15 year old girl made daily headlines in the national press and news across Ireland for almost three weeks after claiming that she had been dragged into an ally way in Galway City and sexually assaulted by two men, while on her way to school. She later admitted she had invented the whole story to get attention, Irish Times (2002). [5] Unlicensed Mind Altering Drugs such as Seroxat used in IRELAND to distort childhood memories of abuse. [6] O’Mahony, P. (2001) points to Mathiesen, T. (1990) Prisons on Trial, London: Sage, p.169; for a credible attempt at the extreme challenge of arguing that rapists should not be imprisoned , see Finstad, L. (1990) ‘Sexual Offenders Out of Prison: Principles for a Realistic Utopia’, in International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 20, 2, pp. 152-78.[7] In October, 2002, The Home Affairs Select Committee at Westminster published a report on the dangers inherent in child sexual abuse investigations. Lord Woolf, Britain’s then Chief Legal Advisor publicly conceded that there could be as many as one hundred miscarriages of justice in this area.[8] Bandon, S., Boakes, J., Glaser, D. and Green, R. (1998), ‘Recovered Memory of Child Sexual Abuse: Implications for Clinical Practice’, British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 172, pp.296-307.[9] These figures were cited by Ms Rhonda Turner, principle psychologist at St Louise’s Unit, Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, at the third National Prosecutors Conference in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. Ms Turner went on to explain that only 4% of confirmed cases of child sexual abuse were prosecuted and the proportion of cases resulting in conviction was even lower.Chapter 2Sex Crime and the MediaJohn Muncie (2000) sets the media and public’s attitude to crime, into context, when he tells us that:Any cursory glance at television programme listings, the contents of mass circulation newspapers or the shelves of fiction in book shops will confirm the extent to which an audience perceives crime not just as a social problem but as a major source of amusement and diversion, the way in which we enjoy violence, humiliation and hurt casts doubt on the universal applicability of harm as always connoting trouble, fear, loss and so on. For participants, too, the pleasure in creating harm, or doing wrong or breaking boundaries is also part of the equation and needs to be thought through (p.225).Prof. Paul O’Mahony (1996) goes further in addressing the media and crime, when he says:Sections of the media never tire of reflecting a fearful message of crime back to the public and amplifying it through selective reporting, sensational headlines and frequently inflammatory editorialising. For most part the media rhetoric of fear and moral panic is built on isolated cases taken out of the broader context of crime in Ireland. Traditional barriers of good taste and reticence have been broken down. As the parameters of the permissible have expended some sections of the media have developed a reprehensible, approach which is sensational and voyeuristic. Supposedly factual accounts and purportedly serious analyses and comment are often exaggerated, unsubstantiated by any reliable supporting evidence, and intended to provoke hysterical response (p.167).This manufacturing of hysterical responses guillotines public and political debate and pushes certain weak politicians towards quick fix and usually harsh and ill-considered repressive and punitive legislation, the results of which are more damaging to society in the long term. Brenda O’ Brien says:I have always said that the media have played a positive role in helping us to come to terms with child abuse, but there is a real danger that they will become intoxicated with their own power (Irish Times. 2002).This positive/negative role played by the media in relation to child sexual abuse was picked up by Bishop Willie Walsh when he said:Can I ask the media to be aware of the danger that it might use its power to occupy that oppressive and uncompassionate role which hopefully the Catholic Church has vacated or at least begun to vacate (Irish Times.2002).Psychotherapist, Marie Keenan said of sex offenders, alleged or real, and the way the media treats them:They were constructed as non-persons and icons of evil. Labels turn people into nouns and hence the paedophile is born (Irish Times.2002).Marie Keenan was critical of the media’s role in this demonization and its indifference to families of offenders by the repetition of cases and repeated use of photographs of abusers. In the majority of child sexual abuse cases the victim/s are from the same family as the abuser and in high profile cases lurid reporting by what has become known as Journophiles [1] can have a devastating impact on innocent members of the extended family. However, we must also remember that many of these Journophiles have no interest in the victims in these cases and are simply reporting sensational headlines in order that they can sell the paperback book they will publish from the transcripts of the trial. However, as journophiles such as Tom Humphries is investigated by the Gardai in relation to allegations of child rape, the public must wonder if there are dark reasons why some journalists such as Tom Humphries set themselves up as societies moral barometers, are these journophiles any different from the Catholic priests who moralised from the altar on a Sunday and raped children on a Monday.Certain media reporting can also see grave injustice done to the victims alleged or actual in such cases. In 1994 the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed a conviction which had led to a fourteen year sentence, because newspaper articles and pictures that were published during the trial period, which named the Defendant, were likely to prejudice the jury against him. In 1994, Mr Justice Kelly find the lurid Star tabloid £10,000 for publishing a report that did not reflect what had gone on in Court and was neither ‘fair or true’. This report led to the dismissal of the jury. In 2002 the reporting of a case appearing before Mr Justice, John Neilan at Mullingar District Court, relating to a charge of false imprisonment and sexual assault of a child, Mr Justice Neilan said of an interview with the alleged victim’s family on RTE:It was outrageous and a nauseating matter (Irish Independent.2002).In the case of Tim Allen a celebrity Chef and the first person to be ‘sentenced’ as a result of Operation Amethyst [2], the trial Judge said he had to take into account the substantial media coverage surrounding the case. The Tim Allen case caused ‘muted’ outcry as he was given 240 hours of community service and agreed to pay £40,000 to a children’s charity. Mr Allen had paid for and down loaded one thousand pictures of children from as young as five being raped (Irish Times. 2003). These acts of legal and moral courage by members of the judiciary to face down the bullying tactics of certain sections of the media and reactionary politicians are the exception rather than the rule.What influence can be put upon a jury by even minimal pre-trial publicity is impossible to measure; however, we can be certain that many accused persons have been denied their Constitutional right to a fair trial due to accesses by certain sections of the media. This is particularly the case in provincial towns in the Irish Republic where serious crimes are tried before the Circuit Court. Crawford (1997) reminds us that:An assertion of community at a local level can be beautifully conciliatory, socially nuanced and constructive but it can also be parochial, intolerant, oppressive and unjust (p.294).Accesses by the media can impugn a convicted person’s ability to seek and receive rehabilitative care when entering the prison system and can destroy the reputation of an acquitted person. This commitment to a fair trial, as set out in the Irish Constitution, Bunreacht na hEireann, and International conventions, was confirmed by Mrs Justice Denham of the Supreme Court in 1993, when she stated:Article 40.3 incorporated a right to fairness of procedures which incorporated the requirement of Trial by jury unprejudiced by pre-trial publicity…the right to a fair trial was a fundamental Constitutional right and was superior to the communities right to prosecute (O’Mahony.1996.p.11).A small number of politicians have not been silent on the matter of accesses by the media, although such disquiet has not been followed through by legislation. The establishment of the Press Complaints Commission is a small step in the right direction, however, when a person’s freedom is at stake no stone must be left unturned in order to guarantee a fair trial to an accused person. On the 4th of May, 2001, Donnie Cassidy, the leader of the Senate at that time said:The rights of citizens were being eroded by some sections of the media and the Oireachtas would have to be courageous in addressing this problem.Mr Maurice Manning, the Fine Gael Leader of the Seanad responded to Mr Cassidy by saying:I would like to draw attention to the fact that this very morning one criminal trial cannot go ahead because of the antics of some newspapers yesterday (Irish Times.2001).In an article in The Irish Times (2003) Fintan O’Toole gave an excellent analysis of the negative role played by some media in the murder trial of Catherine Nevin. O’Toole concludes this article by saying:The media industry, which rightly demands that others account for their use of power, has a lot to account for (p.16).The jury is not the only consideration where the accesses of the media are concerned. In 2001 a Circuit Court Judge, ordered the media from his Court as he sentenced a man found guilty of sexual offences. The judge stated that his reasons for ordering the media from his court was that, he felt the presence of the media would influence his sentencing of the accused man. While this decision by the Circuit Court judge was later over turned by the High Court, it opened up the somewhat muted debate about the effects of popular sentiment and legislative provision for harsher sentences on the actual practice of judicial discretion. However, the muted debate disappeared with the headlines. Even where a judge of the lower courts has banned the publishing of names of persons involved in sexual crime cases in the interest of the victim/s, the High Court has over turned such decisions (Irish Times.2002).Yet there is a moral schizophrenia in sections of the media when it comes to sexual crime alleged or real. While one can read tabloid headlines such as ‘Sex Beast’ and ‘Sex Monster’ (Stanko.2000) the flick of the front page of the tabloid will bring the reader into a world of intimate, lurid and graphic descriptions of sexual crimes and fantasies. The material to be found on these voyeuristic journeys, is equal to the depths of depravity to be found on deviant sexual websites on the World Wide Web, sites developed and maintained for an ever more voyeuristic public, deviant sexual sub-cultures there in, and the young and the vulnerable. These lurid and voyeuristic accounts of criminals proceedings, sex orientated advertisements and perverted sex chat lines are a clear indication of the moral schizophrenia of those sections of the media, which are high on rhetoric but low on morality.On a daily basis there are millions of examples of this moral schizophrenia in the media. Staying specifically with the area of child sexual abuse and exploitation, I have looked at the sex orientated adverts in the tabloid press. While the extent of this article is too confined to give the depth of analysis that I would like, I will however, set out some examples. In the Weekly Sport tabloid, sex orientated adverts run alongside distasteful lurid details of sex crimes before the courts, a sample of these sex orientated adverts is:Young Girls Want to Talk to You 1-2-1Bored Young Girls Waiting for You to CallLively Girls on Line NowYoung Girls Willing to TalkSex adverts and selective reporting of sexual crime in The Star (tabloid) follow a similar pattern. However, The Star goes further by using popular children’s movies to lure and groom potential young customers to their sex adverts, Home Alone (a popular children’s movie) and versions thereof. The Joint National Readership Research group have reported that The Star has some 400,000 readers in Ireland each day, on any given day there are up wards of forty sex adverts in The Star, including titles such as:Bi GirlsSixth FormerIrish GirlsHot and HornyChat with Girls at HomeGirls looking for MenGirls at HomeThis supply of lurid material that often runs alongside advertisements for children’s summer camps and other sporting activity of interest to children must surely be of concern to those in Irish society who genuinely want to see, sexual crime and the environment that facilitates and normalises it eliminated. It is interesting to note that these perverted sex adverts for sex chat lines are excluded from our advertising standards legislation. The proliferation of child owned mobile phones combined with this easy access to lurid material pose a real danger to community safety.Who are these lurid advertisements directed towards? If not the weak minded, the vulnerable and the young. The word Girl in the Oxford English Dictionary means, ‘Female Child’. This discourse coupled with the use of child movies as an introduction to sex chat lines, can leave one with no other conclusion than that these sex orientated adverts are aimed at grooming children, those with a distorted sexual script and any one in the community who derives pleasure from the normalisation of sexual deviance, that these adverts portray. While much reporting of a lurid and voyeuristic nature is broadly confined to the tabloids and certain internet sites it is not exclusive to same. Some Broad sheets and visual media outlets have also tapped into this marketable commodity especially at times of high profile cases.Tom Inglis, in his book, Lessons in Irish Sexuality (1998), sets out the findings of his research when he examined the Sunday Independent, for two separate six month periods. The first six months in 1963 and the second in 1993, his analysis indicated that over the thirty-year period, the number of explicit articles and photographs increased from two to thirty-three; the number of indirect items about sex increased from one to forty-four; and the number of direct items increased from eleven to seventy-six. Roger Grafe (2000) found in his research that:The broad sheets report about three times the actual proportion of violent crime and the tabloids about ten times. The picture of the world one gets from crime news is that it is a very violent place. Inflated perceptions of the level of violence create pressure for something to be done (p.31).What is most significant about this increased supply of lurid and deviant material by sections of the media is that it has gone unchallenged by the Government and those NGOs, voluntary and community groups who allegedly have the interests of victims at heart. Indeed these very same organisations know well that they will themselves need banner headlines when they seek their next trench of funding from Government. The double standards of some politicians were highlighted with the resignation of Government Minister, Mr Bobby Molloy in 2002, after it was disclosed by the right Hon. Mr Justice O’Sullivan, that Mr Molloy, had phoned him in relation to the sentencing of a man convicted but not yet sentenced for raping his daughter. However, the web of intrigue did not stop there; Under a Freedom of Information request by RTE’s, Good Morning Ireland, the Department of Justice was forced to disclose that the then Minister for Justice, Mr John O’Donoghue, ‘Mr Zero Tolerance’, had exchanged fifteen letters with Mr Molloy about the man convicted of, but not yet sentenced for raping his daughter.All of the communications focused on the possibility of getting temporary release or bail for the convicted person, an intervention that is both unlawful and un-constitutional. The same Minister for Justice was a regular contributor by way of articles and interviews with the same lurid tabloids. Indeed Mr O’Donoghue would see himself before the District Court when a convicted person sought summonses issued against Mr O’Donoghue in a private criminal prosecution, after it was disclosed under the FOI Act that Mr O’Donoghue had sent an unlawful communication to the DPP in relation to that convicted persons case (Irish Times.2002). And while Mr O’Donoghue was telling the people of Ireland that sexual crime against children would not be tolerated, he and others were signing off on a deal that would see Religious Child Rapists getting bailed out to the tune of hundreds of millions of Euro, at a time when the majority of the 5,500 children in the ‘care’ of the State don’t have access to professional help. Mr O’Donoghue resigned from his position as Ceann Comhairle of the Dail in 2009 after it was disclosed that he had spent vast amounts of tax payer’s money on extravagances for himself and his wife, including Gondala rides in Venice, while staying in 900 Euro per night Hotel rooms.Few politicians or groups are prepared to challenge accesses by the media. Voluntary, community, ‘victims’ groups and others in the ‘victims industry’ depend on media coverage to high light their profile, which in turn helps them to secure funding from Government each year. An unprecedented ‘bogus moral panic’ was created when a ‘victims’ group colluded with the tabloids to gain banner headlines. In 2003 a ‘victims’ group claimed that over the previous five years there had been a substantial increase in drug induced rape and sexual assault cases. In fact the Gardai and the Sexual Assault Unit at the Rotunda Hospital stated that not one single case of drug induced rape or sexual assault had ever been brought to their attention. Following comprehensive investigation by the Sexual Assault Units around the country, this investigation included toxicology reports on each victim, it was clearly established that the women making such allegations (if they ever did) had simply consumed so much alcohol that they could not remember what they had done the night before. Yet nobody seemed to bat an eye lid when this bogus moral panic was exposed in an RTE 1, Crime Line Report, on the 26th January, 2003.The Irish Independent (2002) reported how a 17 year old French youth, claimed to have been driven by a cult horror movie ‘Scream’ to commit the gratuitous murder of a fifteen year old girl. French Justice Minister, Dominique Perben, commenting on the case said:The Government must quickly come up with a way to avoid this repetition of scenes of violence at the disposition of adolescents. These violent scenes set in motion some particularly fragile adolescents who then play out misdemeanours or crimes.Sex orientated sites on the internet are an extension of this tabloid supply of deviant material, to an ever more voyeuristic public and particularly those with a distorted sexual script there in. Millions of web pages now provide a wide range of sex orientated pornography and literature. The scales of provision go from curious voyeurism, to the most lurid taste, reaching into the dark recesses of unstable minds. In February, 2001, seven people were convicted in London for their part in the ‘Wonderland Club’ which was the world’s largest known child pornography web site. The ‘Wonderland Club’ internet data base held some 750,000 images, including the rape of babies as young as two months old (Irish Indpendent.2001). It is clear from the many cases coming before the courts in England and Ireland, that the higher socio-economic groupings are the main yet not exclusive users of this new technological deviance, this was clear from Operation Amethyst (Irish Times.2002) and was reinforced by experts in this field who were interviewed on an RTE, Prime Time programme on this subject on the 31st May 2010.For generations Irish people were constrained by the condemnation of all, but normal marital sexual relations by the Catholic Church, however, following the Ferns, Murphy, Ryan and Cloyne Reports into religious child rapists that constraint is laid bare, the constraints of moral and religious teaching for generations, has been sharply lifted by the expose of the Catholic Church and the voyeuristic and lurid material of a newly liberated technological era. One would be a fool to suggest that sexual deviance is not a marketable commodity, however, with that marketing must come responsibility. Tony O’Neil CEO of Palmstories.com one of the biggest providers of porn on the internet and mobile phones says of the industry:As far as the web is concerned, pornography has always been at the cutting edge technology wise, the industry is worth billions of dollars generating more money than music or movies (Irish Times. 2001).Emer O’ Kelly told us in the Sunday Independent, that she and other citizens are scourged by sexually explicit pornography, that is sent to them via the internet, into the privacy of their own homes, yet this is not illegal. Supply and demand for lurid and voyeuristic material and sexual stimuli for an ever more voyeuristic public and deviant sub-cultures there in, are growing unhindered, and sections of the media have not been wanting in feeding that demand and exploiting the aquiesants of the Government and others who turn a blind eye to this moral quagmire. Prof. Paul O’ Mahony (1996) says:Pornographic portrayals of the relations between men and women and adults and children permeate our society. Pornography inevitably plays an important role in forming sexual attitudes and quite possibly, in facilitating and promoting sexual crime (p.219).ISPCC Chief Executive, Paul Gilligan, reacting to Operation Amethyst, supported this view expressed by O’ Mahony in that pornography can facilitate crime and can be an integral part of sexual criminality when he said:There is clear evidence from other countries that those in possession of child pornography represent a real risk to children and that those who actively purchase such material represent a greater risk. Some of the biggest paedophile rings and the most compulsive paedophile offenders have been caught on the basis of storing this type of material (Irish Independent.2002).That said of course, the many thousands of religious child rapists including Homophiles, Hetrophiles and Paedophiles who operated within the Catholic Church would not have had access to such pornographic material in the 1940s/50s/60s and so forth. The ever more voyeuristic public and particularly those with a distorted sexual script there in, as set out in this article, are vulnerable to the detrimental influences of deviant literature and photography and persons outside this profile, who lack countervailing influences, particularly the young, can be taken along on a tide of sexual deviant activity and criminality. The conviction in England in May 2010 of two ten year old boys for the attempted rape of an eight year old girl, begs the question, why are children engaging is such activity, they did not learn it from watching the Telly Tubbies or Bosco.In a survey published in July, 2002, the National Centre for Technology in Education found that 73% of 8-10 year old children had internet access at home. In an RTE Prime Time investigation aired on the 31st of May 2010, it was shown that 99% of children now have access to the internet at home. The report in 2002 further stated that as many as 25% of children with internet access at home had encountered pornography on the internet. In the Prime Time programme in 2010 this number is much greater and the dangers posed by chat rooms and social networking sites are an ever increasing danger. This normalising of deviant activity by the pornographic web sites, other sections of the media and a traditionally acquiescent Fianna Fail Government and others have lowered the barriers, and provided a constant stream of images and literature to create and feed unhealthy and grossly unrealistic fantasies. The great disappointment with the Prime Time programme was that it failed to address the role played by the tabloids and other media in normalising and facilitating sexual crime, and rather seemed to suggest that it is only those sites that exchange child pornography or have a cyber-contact element that pose the only threat to children, again enforcing the image of the paedophile, homophile or hetrophile as a man in the cyber bushes wearing a rain coat.What is important to remember about deviance, says Young (1973) is that:Deviant behaviour….is a meaningful attempt to solve the problems faced by a group or isolated individual – it is not a meaningless pathology (p.42).Young’s proposition raises the question, why does society prefer to decry rather than confront sexual deviance in an open and constructive forum? May explanations can be offered and some have been put forward in this paper, however, unlike ‘homosexuality’ other sexual sub-cultures particularly those relating to child sexual abuse, cannot be so easily set outside the dominant sexual culture. It is perhaps this fear of examining too closely sexual crime and particularly sexual crime against children (Operation Amethyst, Ferns Report, Murphy Report, Ryan Report and the Cloyne Report) that allows the hard line consensus to square their shoulders and shout ‘hang them’, however, as we have learned in Ireland, it is usually those who shout the loudest that do so to conceal their own crimes. In 2011, a 45 year old, father of two children, from Slane Village, in County Meath, who had lead a campaign to have another man driven out of Slane over alleged sexual offences in 2005, was brought before Navan District Court charged with producing child pornography.If the figures, relating to sexual crime in Ireland presented in this article in terms of Operation Amethyst and so forth are even close to the true extent of sexual crime, then one wonders in a population of four-million people, what family in the broadest sense is without its own difficulties. The recent revelations by Sinn Fein, President, Gerry Adams TD that he had known for decades that both his father and Brother Liam were child abusers, exposes the reality of how many dark secrets remain untold in Ireland. However, all is not lost as Brenda O’ Brien reminds us that:An important Canadian study shows that untreated sex offenders have a 35% recidivism rate, while it is less than 10% for those who are un treated (Irish Times.2002).When John O’Donoghue TD was Minister for Justice, dozens of convicted sex offenders applied to go on the sex offenders treatment programme at Arbour Hill Prison, the majority were told that there were no facilities to treat them due to lack of funding, this at a time when the Department of Justice spent vast fortunes on expensive trips abroad and squandered tens of millions of Euro on lavish expenses for O’Donoghue and his ilk. Many within the hard-line consensus like British Home Secretary, Jack Straw (1997-2001) who introduced ill-considered and punitive measures against sexual deviance, found that he had to build the scaffold close to home when his brother was charged with sexual crimes against two young girls in 2000. In July 2001, the Taoiseach’s Office was quick to play down reports that it was the subject of a major investigation by the Director of Equality, into allegations of serious sexual harassment against a former female employee. While some Cabinet Ministers, had in the weeks prior to these allegations against the Taoiseach’s Office been able to illegally comment on certain cases of a sexual nature before the criminal courts, the Taoiseach’s Department had ‘No Comment’ in relation to its own dirty laundry that was being hung out in the public arena.This hypocrisy is not exclusive to weak politicians, in 2005; The Editor of The Star paid a sex offender who had just been released from prison 400 Euro for photographs of the said sex offender. The said sex offender had asked a friend to take pictures of him as he walked in O’Connell Street on the day he was released from prison, the said sex offender then sold these photographs to The Star for 400 Euro, the following day The Editor of The Star published the photographs claiming that a Star photographer had ‘captured’ the pictures as he seen the said sex offender on O’ Connell Street. The Editor of The Star continues to be a paid guest on many Irish television programmes where he continues to lecture the Irish public on matters of morality and good citizenship.The vitriol expounded by certain sections of the media for those accused of sexual crime, particularly against children, it is not a new phenomenon. In the not too distant past ‘homosexuals’ were the target of the editorial ‘moralists’. In the 1980s and 1990s Ireland’s sexual closet flung open with a vengeance and from this sexual expose, homosexuals were reluctantly ‘accepted’ into the status quo as an oppressed sexual minority, as opposed to a ‘sexually deviant sub-culture’. Such is the strength of the ‘homosexual’ lobby today in the UK and Ireland, that laws have been introduced to reflect a more liberal approach to the gay community. What ‘was’ seen as being seriously criminal by the Governments of the UK and Ireland a few short years ago is today not only ‘tolerated’ but is legislated for. Sexual activity with a child must remain criminal as no child can consent to such activity, however, child protection, community safety and crime prevention cannot be delegated to certain weak politicians and editorial ‘moralists’, whose only motivation respectively is self-preservation and gross commercialism.Cross (1979) quotes Lord Summers, to sum up, attitudes to homosexuality before the prevailing liberalism:Persons who commit the offences now under consideration seek the habitual gratification of particular perverted lust which not only takes them out of the class of ordinary men gone wrong, but stamps them with the hall-mark of specialised and extraordinary class as much as if they carried on their bodies some physical peculiarity (p.366).In a more contemporary address of homosexuality, Monsignor, Andrew Baker of the Vatican’s Congregation of Bishops said:Homosexuals may be more familiar with certain patterns and techniques of deception and repression…Nor can a homosexual be genuinely a sign of Christ’s spousal love for the Church…if the homosexual could be healed from such disorder, then he could be considered for admission to the seminary and possibly to Holy Orders, but not while being afflicted with the disorder (Irish Times.2002).Indeed these words may well have meant something if they were not being uttered by a representative of the Catholic Church, a Church that has concealed the rape of thousands of children across the world at the hands of Homophiles, Hetrophiles and Paedophiles within the Catholic Church. An interesting observation that I make in relation to the current trend by certain sections of the media to burn male sexual deviants, alleged or real, at the stake, while excusing their female counter parts as being mentally ill. Is the fact that a number of journalists who belonged to the once flogged sub-culture of ‘homosexuality’, set aside more than a fair share of column inches to condemn the deviance of recently emerging sexual sub-cultures. Perhaps these individuals unsure of their own membership of their particular group need to vilify others for some form of security and acceptance into an uncertain world. Why do these journalists create the illusion that all religious child rapists were paedophiles when in fact over 95% of them were Homophiles, this misinformation helps to create the illusion that certain sections of society do not rape children, when the evidence is very clearly to the contrary.However, out of this vilification and recrimination needs to emerge rational and reasoned debate about how to develop best practice in child protection, crime prevention and community safety, how many lives could have been saved if the ‘Gay’ debate had not been left for so long in the hands of the ‘moral’ guardians in the media and politics. The difficulty with the supply of lurid and voyeuristic material in the media and especially that which feeds the habits of those with a distorted sexual script and facilitates sexual crime in general (O’ Mahony.1996), is that it normalises deviance in the minds of people already suffering from a variety of psychological, emotional, moral and social crisis. Many sex offenders come from non-nurturing back grounds; they can’t express their emotions or even ask the questions that could set them free from a life time of mental torture (Casey.1999). A Press Ombudsman is a good start to setting some standard in a runaway media, however, much more needs to be done if another generation are not to be morally bankrupted by those who help normalise and facilitate sexual crime in Ireland.[1] Journophile is the term used to describe those persons who write or contribute to those media outlets that facilitate and normalise sexual deviance by way of their objectification of men, women and children through the advertising of perverted sex chat lines, pornographic imagery or lurid sexual literature. [2] Operation Amethyst was an FBI led investigation that identified people all over the world who had accessed, paid for and down loaded child pornography from the internet. 100 people were identified in Ireland including a Circuit Court Judge who would later have the charges against him dropped as the search warrant used to seize his computer was some hours out of date. The Judge in question had been one of the founder members of the now defunct Progressive Democrats, the ‘anti-corruption’ party.
Chapter 3Sex Crime and PrisonsDr Ian O’Donnell, Institute of Criminology, Law Faculty, UCD, explains that in Ireland, Britain and the USA:One consequence of the politicisation of crime has been a surge in prison populations. Placing more people behind bars might satisfy a thirst for vengeance, if only until the next outrage.The former Minister for Justice, John O’Donoghue (1997-02) was quick to relate the ‘fall’ in crime to the expansion of the prison population in the Irish Republic (Sunday Times.2003) upon examination we see that such headline grabbing is not supported by the facts. The former Minister for Justice was falling in behind the discourse of what Bottoms (1995) describes as:Populist PunitivenessContrary to O’Donoghue’s spin in the media, a comparison between the Garda Siochana Annual Reports (2000-02) paint an entirely different picture than that presented by O’Donoghue about the true state of reported crime in Ireland in this period, in this period of increased prison populace (Irish Prison Service Reports. 1999-00. p.10 also 2000-01) there was increases across all ten categories of ‘headline’ crime. These include the most serious offences such as homicide, assault, rape and robbery. In 2000-02 there was an average of one murder per week, while reported sexual crimes reached unprecedented levels (1,070 < 1,956 < 3,174 respectively). Remembering that the Sex Offenders Bill was introduced in 2001 as the great deterrent against sexual criminality, its effects were to the contrary and continue to be so. It should also be remembered that the conviction of a person for multiple rape is recorded by the Gardai as one crime. O’Donoghue hoped that his constant creation of banner headlines would ensure that his own crimes of squandering millions of Euros of tax payer’s money would not be uncovered. It is this discourse of populist punitiveness and the juggling or massaging of crime figures by weak politicians and their spin doctors that ensures that the public continue to look to imprisonment as a primary means of preventing crime. Marcus Felson (1994) suggests that those societies that depend on the ‘old’ criminal justice agencies as the main source of crime prevention:Have already lost the battle against crime (p.xi)Unfortunately in the Irish Republic the majority of Ministers only hold the Justice portfolio for a five year period or less and therefore they can survive in office without even attempting any reform of the system, they can in fact spin and weave their way from one Ministerial portfolio to the next without ever taking responsibility for anything including their lavish expense accounts, this was certainly the case under Fianna Fail. Muncie (2002) reminds us that in the aftermath of the murder of three year old James Bulger in England in 1993, the youth justice system in particular took a sharp turn down the road to retribution when he says:Custody was once more promoted as the key means to prevent re-offending through the in-capacitive slogan ‘Prison Works’. As a result, it has been argued that, particularly in England and Wales, a legal discourse of guilt, responsibility and punishment has always tended to surface and resurface as the dominant position in the definition and adjudication of young offending (p.145).Unfortunately there have been many James Bulger’s since and nothing has changed, in Ireland it is clear that those who pose the most serious threat to society continue while behind prison bars to run criminal empires and order murder and drug shipments by way of mobile phone the way ordinary citizens would order pizza. It is my contention that any growth in the penal population inevitably mutes any commitment to promoting rehabilitation and therefore preventing recidivism amongst offenders in all categories of criminality. From as early as 2003 the effects of a global down turn, in terms of economic growth, were already being felt within the prison system here in Ireland with penny pinching cut backs in education and rehabilitation, even the traditional Christmas packet of cigarettes given to prisoners by some Governors was taken away.While Ministers for Justice such as John O’Donoghue and Michael Mc Dowell could spend vast fortunes of tax payer’s money on their five star life styles, they failed the public by making mealy mouthed cuts within the prison system. The closing of Shangallagh House by Michael Mc Dowell SC was described by the Governor of Mountjoy Prison, John Lonnegan as:An Act of pure EvilThese mealy mouthed cuts have continued each and every year since 2003, while capital projects such as the extension to Wheatfield Prison have went ahead, these moves have been of-set by the closure of the Curragh Prison, Spike Island Prison and so forth. The revolving door system that operated in the 1980s is fully operational in 2010, as overcrowding is at an unprecedented level and 1000 prisoners on early release. Regional papers carry court reports of Judges expressing surprise as defendants that they sentenced to terms of imprisonment appear before them on new charges when they should still be serving those custodial sentences. However, even during years of substantial economic growth in the IrishRepublic, a period known as the Celtic Tiger, there was no significant investment in new imaginaries of rehabilitation within or outside the penal system. Generally political administrations appear short sighted when it comes to crime prevention. However, even when light appears at the end of the new imaginaries tunnel, it simply takes one ‘bogus moral panic’ and certain weak politicians, to send even the most progressive political administration into penal regression, as the spin doctors set out to suppress the lurid tabloid headlines.It is unfortunate that former Ministers for Justice, such as John O’Donoghue could find time within their schedule to write articles for the lurid tabloids and persecute individual citizens, but could only skulk in and out of Wheatfield Prison on a thirty minute visit like some political pervert. Rene van Swaaningen (2002) quotes Garland (2000) to suggest that prison:On an instrumental level it provides a place where people who cannot be fitted into a ‘free country’ of consumer choice can be warehoused (p.263).However, in Ireland we are acutely aware that such warehousing is excessively reserved for those who are economically superfluous (O’Mahony.1993). It is clear in Ireland in 2011 that some of the most corrupt and criminal politicians, bankers and property speculators will never see the inside of a prison cell even though they have bankrupted the country through acts of criminality which are economically comparable to the damage done to America by the 9/11 atrocity in New York. It is important to remember that even in countries that have been testing and adapting new imaginaries in crime prevention and particularly the management of offenders within such a paradigm, the penal industry is a growth industry (Christie.1993). Furthermore, Hughes et al (2002) reminds us that:We continue to live in brutal times, with old crimes and punishments coexisting alongside the new reductive architecture of control and security (p.337).When a person is convicted of a sexual crime, of which there are many categories, finds him or herself imprisoned, they are in a weird suspended animation. In many cases persons convicted of sexual crime have themselves been abused while in the ‘care’ of the State, Church or domestic setting and have from that went on to be abusers (Casey.1999 and Hoggett.2000). In prison, persons convicted of sexual offending and particularly those with the split victim/perpetrator profile find themselves in an environment populated by abusers, and the socialisation and normalisation process that goes along with such an environment. Eighteen year old boys with the split victim/perpetrator profile are housed with well-seasoned abusers, and soon find themselves being sodomised for the price of an ounce of tobacco. Marie Keenan tells us that research indicates that:Abusers experienced a deficit in intimacy and social skills, leading to emotional isolation. Abusers have a distorted sexual script which allowed abuse; emotional dysregulation which inhibited effective management of feelings, and cognitive distortions/implicit theories which allowed the abuse (Irish Times.2002).Paul Hoggett (2000) supports this view of abused becoming abuser, when he says:Bodily and physically integrity, freedom from physical and emotional violence, are central to the development of our being. Traumatised subjects are haunted by a past which casts its shadow over all assertions of agency, in the worst case leaving them doomed to repeat past injuries in future encounters: as we now know, so many abusive fathers were themselves once abused as children (p.146).Wheatfield Prison in Dublin, was purposely built in the 1980s with modern standards in mind, there is an education unit, workshops and a range of services. Yet with all of these services available, at least one quarter of the prison population rarely leave their cell or landing due to fear of physical attack or psychological abuse. Those persons who do leave their landing to seek help, employment or training, particularly those identified in the media as being convicted for a sexual crime against a child, must run a gauntlet of abuse on a daily basis. In many instances those dispensing the abuse have been convicted of similar crimes, but they have not been identified in the media and so shout loudest to conceal their own crimes. If persons being abused attempt to defend them-selves, the attackers will have ten witnesses to say that the prisoner attacked was the instigator of the violence. Prisoners are then put on a prison charge, known as a P19, and can lose remission.Many prisoners cannot afford to purchase nor would they ask visitors to leave in ‘normal’ sexual stimuli, as allowed by the Department of Justice. For, example, the Department of Justice allows ‘Mayfair’, a male sex orientated magazine. It can also be seen that many persons convicted of sexual and ‘non-sexual’ crimes use the sexually explicit pictures or literature from the tabloids to decorate the walls of their cells. Many explicit sex orientated magazines are smuggled into the prison system, and recently one of Ireland’s most high profile and dangerous criminals, John Gilligan, was found to have women’s underwear in his cell. The majority of prisoners cover the walls of their cell with explicit pornography, even that which has been smuggled in. The reason that I pause in relation to persons convicted of ‘non-sexual’ crimes is due to the fact that many persons convicted of drug related offences and so forth make no secret of the fact that they have been involved in rape and other sexual offences, but have not been convicted of same. It is not unusual to hear a group of young prisoners talk about how they were at a party and the women were so ‘stoned’ they had sex with at least one woman without that woman being in a condition to consent to having sex.Some drug users ‘Junkies’ and drug dealers even boast of how they paid off their victims by giving them a few Euros worth of heroin. Many of these sexually explicit pictures in the cells of prisoners show young women dressed in school uniforms or other child related poses, for example, sucking their thumb, licking a lollipop and so forth. It is then the case that the majority of persons convicted of sexual crimes depend on the tabloids and explicit sexual contraband for stimuli. It is the lurid sexual detail of articles and court cases, coupled with sex orientated advertising contained in the tabloid press that gives a sense of normalisation to those who have a distorted sexual script and others who are without countervailing influences. Many persons convicted of sexual crimes refer to the ‘journalists’ who provide them with this daily diet of deviant sexual stimuli as Journophiles. The Journophile is to the sexually dysfunctional what the drug dealer is to the ‘Junkie’ he/she feeds, in many cases, what is a compulsive addiction. Many prisoners found in the illegal possession of mobile phones, approximately 2000 mobiles are confiscated each year in Irish prisons, were found to have used those phones to ring perverted sex chat lines advertised in the lurid tabloids.Normal prison life means that prisoners are locked in their cells for seventeen hours per day; add to this administrative interment, deviant sexual stimuli, without rehabilitative resource and the results are sadly predictable. In 2009 a prisoner who had just been released from Wheatfield Prison having served a sentence for rape, committed another sexual crime within fourteen hours of his release. This prisoner had during his sentence been confined to his cell 24 hours per day without access to rehabilitative care, even though he sought such care, he was told that there was no money to provide such rehabilitative care. Isolation, de-socialisation, drug use/abuse, sensory deprivation, emotional deprivation and so on, make a bad situation worse. In many cases persons convicted of sexual crimes are already isolated and marginalised from family and community before going to prison. Added to this social stigma in the community, resulting from being convicted of a sexual crime, particularly involving children, upon entering prison are further isolated.This isolation in prison is not only due to the administrative internment mentioned above, but also isolation from the general prison population. This isolation occurs especially, although not exclusively, if their cases have been reported in the media, and the threat to their safety that flows from that added punishment. Some such prisoners, particularly members of Religious orders, Gardai, politicians and so forth get special treatment and are sent to the safe environment of Arbour Hill Prison in Dublin that caters almost exclusively for sex offenders. While Wheatfield Prison now houses the majority of sex offenders presently serving sentences in the Republic, Wheatfield is a very dangerous place for both staff and vulnerable prisoners. The gang rape of a young prisoner in Wheatfield in 2010, on the orders of a Limerick based gang housed there, highlights the perversity of the situation in Wheatfield. Officers are regularly subjected to threat and intimidation and for this reason many prison officers have been caught bringing drugs and other contraband into the gangs who run Wheatfield. Wheatfield like most prisons in the Republic is controlled on the outside by the State, but controlled on the inside by gangs; I call this the doughnut effect. The State keeps the prisoners in, while the gangs run the various landings and wings within the prisons.However, Arbour Hill is far from meeting best practice or international standards in the management of sex offenders, the normalisation process of deviant sexual behaviour simply becomes manifest when clusters of offenders are placed together. This thesis is supported by some contributors to a very progressive report on sexual offending that was commissioned by the Irish Prison Service (Lundstrom.2002). It has been found that sex offenders are provided in prison with a unique opportunity to network. For example, in the case of Paddy O’Driscoll who had served a sentence for rape, was released and raped again, on the night of his most recent rape for which he is now serving eighteen years, he was in the company of another convicted rapist Paddy Moorehouse, whom he had meet in prison. In 2008, Gardai discovered that a serial sex offender, Peter Hayden from County Kilkenny, who had been released from Wheatfield, was using a false name to have daily phone contact with another serial sex offender Eamon ‘Captain’ Cooke who remained in Wheatfield. It is also worth noting that when a person convicted of sexual crimes enters prison, particularly prisons not catering for such persons, the convicted person is told by prison staff to say that they are in for an offence that is not sexual, for example, robbery. While this ‘denial’ is suggested by the staff in the interests of prisoner safety, it can eventually lead to prisoners who have pleaded guilty in Court, becoming convinced of their own innocence. This denial leads to even greater psychological trauma and set back in the acceptance process of the wrong done. Many persons convicted of sexual crimes have received brutal treatment at the hands of fellow inmates and sometimes acquiescing staff. This brutal treatment is due to the fact that sections of the media have given status to persons convicted of heinous ‘non’ sex crimes, Martin Cahill (The General) or John Gilligan are cult heroes among the criminal hordes, thanks to the tabloids. These cult heroes have committed much greater crimes in premeditation, number and deed, than the majority of persons convicted of sexual offending.However, the exclusion of persons convicted of sexual crimes from the ‘ordinary decent criminal’ is not exclusive. Leading members of Dublin, Limerick gangs who have convictions for rape and sexual assault are openly accepted into the prison landings that house ‘the ordinary decent criminal’. Stephen ‘Rossi’ Walsh convicted in 2009 for the rape of a nine year old female child is serving his sentence with ‘ordinary decent criminals’. Christy Griffin who is serving life for the systematic rape of a female child is accorded political like status in Portlaoise Prison. In many cases particularly among clusters of prisoners from the same area of Dublin, Limerick and so forth, it is ‘macho’ for a twenty year old prisoner to have raped a woman or young girl. However, a sixty year old, particularly from outside Dublin, Limerick and so forth, entering prison for the same crime is likely to be the subject of serious abuse. In Wheatfield Prison some of the prisoners causing most problems for persons convicted of sexual crime are persons who are convicted of the same if not worse offences, however, if they are not identified in the media they can use the ‘attack’ mechanism for their own protection. One prisoner Michael ‘Micko’ Whelan who was constantly attacking or causing to be attacked, older men who had been identified in the media for being convicted of sexual crime, was serving a long sentence for raping a school girl at knife point.In October, 2001, two prisoners were sentenced to nine years and three years respectively at Roscommon Circuit Court. These two prisoners carried out a horrific attack on a fellow inmate at Castlerea Prison, in February, 2001, after falsely accusing the victim of being convicted of a sexual offence (Irish Independent.2001). A third prisoner would be sentenced to nine years for the same attack (Irish Independent.2002). Rarely are such cases prosecuted, due mainly to the fear of the victim, of further attack within the prison system, if he/she Rats. Rat is derogatory term used to describe a prisoner who passes information onto the authorities. Prisoners who are suspected of being Rats can be subject to stabbings, slashing, assaults and so forth, a prisoner in Wheatfield Prison was raped in 2010 as it was alleged that he was a Rat.Elizabeth Stanko (2000) when speaking about the effects of racist abuse describes closely the environment that many persons convicted of sexual crime find themselves in, when she says:The experience of racist abuse demonstrates that the climate of subordination and inequality is maintained through a continual stream of comments and actions, constantly reminding those in particular groups that they are living within a hostile and intimidating social environment (p.255).While many may think that persons convicted of such crimes should be subject to such abuse, it should clearly be noted that 96% of their peers are never prosecuted. Sharon Gewirtz (2000) quotes, Young, to highlight the negative effects of oppressive institutional violence:The oppression of violence consists not only in direct victimisation, but in the daily knowledge shared by all members of oppressed groups that they are liable to violation, solely on account of their group identity. Just living under such threat of attack on oneself or family or friends deprives the oppressed of freedom and dignity, and needlessly expends their energy…To the degree that institutions and social practices encourage, tolerate, or enable the perpetration of violence against members of specific groups, those institutions and practices are unjust and should be reformed (p.319).While Wheatfield Prison is one of only two prisons built in modern times and with modern standards in mind, it has no communal eating, although there is a communal eating area provided on each of the twenty landings, this excludes the new extension opened in 2010. Each landing has sixteen cells that were designed for single occupancy, however, those cells have now been doubled up and so a landing designed for a maximum population of sixteen prisoners now houses thirty-two prisoners. Recreation is limited to two hours each evening, at which time prisoners can play a game of pool or watch television. This administrative internment further creates the conditions for a de-socialising process. Even on a special occasion, such as Ireland playing Germany in the World Cup (5.6.2002) prisoners were locked in their cells for the duration of the game and longer. Although prisoners have a fourteen inch television in their cells for which they pay five Euro per month, the World Cup presented a unique opportunity for prisoners to share a communal experience and with that some sense of normality and worth, yet it was lost. Much of the focus by certain sections of the media and government legislation on sexual crime has led to a devaluing of human life. This devaluing of human life is not simply due to the fact that some persons convicted of sexual offending are spending more time in prison than those convicted of murder, man-slaughter and so forth, but due to the fact that little or no attention is paid to rehabilitation for those who view deviance as normality. This deviant normality is a perception greatly enhanced by the same media who would provide the wood for the scaffold, for those convicted of sexual offending, most of whom need help not harm. In Ireland today there are two places where members of sexual deviant sub-cultures can meet in greater numbers, the Internet and Prison. Operation Amethyst proved the former, my own observations proves the latter. That is not to say that everyone convicted of sexual crimes on entering prison, will automatically sit down with other persons convicted of similar crimes and exchange stories. Quite the contrary in many cases, however, without countervailing influences, a common language is soon accepted and derogatory terms for women and sexual acts in general, become the standard discourse. It is this objectification of potential victims that will ensure that more people will be subject to sexual criminality.In 2010 the Fianna Fail lead coalition Government continued to deny open, honest and transparent debate about child sexual abuse. On Thursday the 17th of June 2010, Mr Alan Shatter, Fine Gael spokesman on children insisted that a European Directive on combating the sexual abuse and exploitation of children and child pornography should be discussed in a plenary Dail session, stating that:It should be discussed on the floor of the house and not simply nodded through.It is this type of on-going denial by successive Governments to address these serious matters in any meaningful way that helps facilitate and normalise sexual criminality in our country. While certain sections of the media and internet sites generate and supply a demand for lurid sexual material. The Criminal Justice System, and in particular the prison system has essentially to play a significant role in the rehabilitation process. Successive Ministers for Justice and Governments of Ireland have consistently negated their responsibility in this area. At the end of the first five years of the Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrat Coalition Government (1997-02) a five year period in which the Irish Republic enjoyed unprecedented economic growth, there were eight places provided per annum on a tailored programme for sex offenders at Arbour Hill Prison. This was the only such programme within the criminal justice system. In 2011 there are no programmes specifically designed for the rehabilitation of those convicted of sexual offending and within the Irish prison system, there are several hundred persons men/women presently serving sentences for sexual criminality.Even when there was a programme specifically tailored for the rehabilitation of convicted sex offenders, there was what can only be described as a ‘Rehabilitation Lottery’, prisoners seeking help were told time and again that there was no facilities available for them. Some prisoners, who had committed serious sexual crimes, including gratuitous violence against their victims, had applied for a place on the programme at Arbour Hill Prison but were refused. On one occasion a serial offender who wanted rehabilitative help went to the High Court in desperation to try and force the Government to provide him with access to rehabilitation before he was released from prison (see, Farrell v The State) both the High Court and the Supreme Court ruled that it was a matter for the Government if they provided rehabilitation or not.Week after week persons convicted of sexual offending leave Irish prisons after serving sentences ranging from one to fifteen years, without having received even basic rehabilitative opportunity. Like many other categories of offenders, persons convicted of sexual crimes are denied even a limited pre-release/reintegration programme, before being parachuted back into the community. A case coming before the Dublin Circuit Court in 2001, highlighted this criminal negligence by the then Minister for Justice, John O’Donoghue and his Department, when Judge Yvonne Murphy returned a man to prison for three years at his own request. This man could not cope with life outside of the prison system, having just served an eight year sentence from which he had been de-socialised and institutionalised (Irish Independent.2001). However, many such offenders unable able to cope with life outside of prison do not normally return by such a diplomatic route. Many released prisoners simply re-offend to return to three square meals per day, to a place that is more familiar to them than the hostile community that waits on the outside of the wall.That hostile community that has been created by banner headlines and certain weak politicians, all of whom care more about their own inflated salaries and expenses than they do about child protection and community safety. Both Focus Ireland and PACE, say that homelessness is a major problem for ex-prisoners. Add to homelessness all of the other needs of ex-prisoners and the result is predictable. The Irish Penal Reform Trust, produced a report in 2001, ‘Out of Mind, Out of Sight’, which showed that at least one-third of prisoners were mentally disabled or are learning deficient, the Fianna Fail Government tried to suppress this report. Successive Ministers for Justice in the Irish Republic have remained wedded to the penal discourse of crime and punishment, while other more progressive countries such as Britain, Australia and Canada have been developing new imaginaries in correctional practice. Such imaginaries have been directed at moulding self-reliant prisoners. Within this enterprises paradigm prisoners are ‘Trained for Freedom’ (Garland.1996). Garland (1996) continues by saying that such regimes:Enlist the prisoner as an agent in his/her own rehabilitation, and as an entrepreneur of his/her own personal development. They are permitted to choose their preferred options from within the available range of developmental activities (p.462).The criminal negligence of John O’Donoghue and other backward thinking Ministers for Justice, is ignored by the trial judge if a convicted person/non-rehabilitated person re-offends upon release. The offender is simply thrown back on the criminal justice conveyor belt, that has churned out generations of repeat offenders (O’Mahony.2000, Goldson and Peters.2000). It was incredible to hear the former Minister for Justice, John O’Donoghue, congratulate himself on the fact that there were more people in prison than before he took office, this he believed in his ignorance was progress. A case could easily be made before the court that it was John O’Donoghue and others who were the real criminals by denying convicted persons a basic fundamental Human Right, that right being access to appropriate rehabilitative care, we now know that O’Donoghue and others were more concerned about their own five star luxury than they were or are about the rape of children.If Health Boards can be sued for failing to protect children, why should rape victims not sue the Government of Ireland, for failing to at least offer the opportunity of rehabilitation to prisoners who are convicted of sexual crime and then go on to re-offend after their release from prison. If it can be shown that Ministers wasted vast sums of public money lining their own pockets while failing to make rehabilitation available to those prisoners who sought help, then those Ministers and the State should be sued if not prosecuted for criminal negligence. It is worth noting that many commentators on sexual criminality, and particularly some within the ‘victims industry’ have called for prisoners to be subject to mandatory rehabilitation, again such calls show the depth of ignorance prevailing in some quarters. During John O’Donoghue’s term as Minister for Justice, dozens of persons convicted of sexual offending applied for and were denied rehabilitative help. However, this clutching at sound-bites by the self-serving and ill-informed fails to recognise the failure of such compulsory programmes in relation to other forms of ‘dysfunction’, for example, drug addiction (O’Malley.2002).The most crucial fact evading legislative change or public discourse in relation to sexual criminality is that persons imprisoned for sexual crimes are only a small percentage of those who engage in sexual criminality. Remembering, for example, that 96% of persons confirmed by Health Boards as having raped and sexually abused children will never be prosecuted. There are 23,000 files belonging to known female sex offenders in the fourteen area Health Boards and none of these files have been passed to the Gardai. Some files have been passed to the Gardai but these 23,000 files where women have admitted to sexually abusing children have never been passed to the Gardai. It is this 4% of convicted persons that certain weak politicians, ‘interest groups’ and sections of the media find easiest to attack, rather than addressing the structural failures of the State to provide even basic protections for children from those with greatest access to children in Ireland. Thousands of women and men who have been confirmed by Health Board staff as having raped and sexually abused children, have unsupervised/unrestricted access to children every day of the week in Ireland.As mentioned earlier people can work with children in crèches and so on, without training or even basic clearance procedures being in place. Many crèches and child ‘care’ facilities have employed cheap foreign labour, the majority of whom cannot be vetted in any manner. What value is Garda Siochana clearance procedure, when 96% of persons who have been confirmed by Health Board staff as having committed sexual acts against children are not prosecuted? This writer wants a national data base in place, and on that data base the names of every person who has been confirmed as a child abuser and everyone who has concealed/facilitated that child abuse on that data base, purely for child protection and community safety reasons. It is an outrage that persons confirmed as having raped and abused children can work within our Health and Child Care systems. The Fianna Fail Government continued to allow the smoke and mirrors of legal constraint, to restrain the Health Boards and the Gardai from informing potential employers that confirmed sex offenders, women and men, pose a threat to children. O’Mahony (1996) reminds us that:The official response to the presence of an ever increasing number of persons convicted of sexual crimes in the Irish prison system with regard to rehabilitation, treatment and education, has matched the scandalously neglected response to the problem of drug using prisoners (p.223).Mr Justice Flood likened the system of dealing with persons imprisoned for sexual crime to:Throwing a chicken carcass into a bin and leaving it there to rot (O’Mahony.1996.p.224)While Mr Justice Flood’s comments are equally applicable in 2011 the fact is that the carcass does not rot away, but is released back into the community, a community that is as ill prepared to deal with such offenders as the prison system. This failure to rehabilitate in turn leads to further isolation, frustration and anger of the individual concerned, the results of which in all categories of crime is the committing of more crimes, because the offender has nothing left to lose by going back to prison (O’Mahony.1993. Goldson and Peters.2000) While one recognises that the Probation and Welfare services, Education services, psychological services and other professionals who work within the prison system do their best, it is a best within a vacuum. A vacuum due to lack of policy objective or direction, resource scarcity and political indifference, while some prison officers run workshops and so forth, these services are under staffed, underfunded and in most cases de-motivated due to a lack of multi-disciplinary/strategic approach to the rehabilitation of convicted persons (Lundstrom.2002).In the Irish Republic in recent years many politicians and other opinion formers, have fallen in behind the prevailing zeitgeist of the hard line consensus. In the UK and Northern Ireland the focus has been on Human Rights, particularly in Northern Ireland since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (1998), in areas such as policing, judiciary, prisons and law reform. The hard line consensus in the Republic has moved further from the Constitution and international Human Rights standards to a regime of repression, thus precipitating the current crisis in values and purpose in the Irish Criminal Justice system. With the exception of a few Judges, an acquiescent judiciary have like performing poodles, administered, rushed and ill-considered criminal justice legislation. Legislation that is passed by certain weak politicians to assuage public opinion, an opinion or ‘moral panic’ normally manufactured by the lurid tabloid press and those on fatted salaries within the ‘victims industry’. O’Malley (2002) reminds us that while Britain and Australia are fostering more progressive regimes in relation to prisoner rehabilitation the same Governments are:Introducing increasingly oppressive risk-based regimes bearing on ‘sexual’ and ‘violent’ offenders (p.293).Certain weak politicians have murdered, by legislation, any progress towards a system that produces good citizens rather than repeat offenders. Political and media interference with the judicial process is not a new phenomenon, however, that interference and intimidation has gone relatively unchecked in recent years. Such exposed interference has seen the resignation of Government Ministers, Bobby Molloy and Trevor Sargent are such examples. Former Minister for Justice, John O’Donoghue was subject to a private criminal prosecution when it was established that he had abused his office to interfere in a criminal case (Mc Kenna v O’Donoghue.2002). Paul O’Mahony (1996) says that:It is unlikely that judges have been completely impervious and unresponsive in this matter. Judges have certainly utilised the longer sentences now available to them for sexual offences (p.16).An extremely worrying result of the hard line consensus, and political populism that under pins it is that successive Ministers for Justice have decided to treat persons convicted of sexual crimes, differently from all other offenders. Ministers for Justice have adopted an unconstitutional and inhuman policy of keeping persons convicted of sexual offending in prison until the last minute on their committal warrant, with the statutory 25% reduction for good behaviour. Why Justice Ministers have adopted this discrimination is clear, they fear the banner headlines of the tabloids and they quake in their boots at the marching hordes of the Feminazi. It is not my argument that all crimes can be treated equal, there are certain individuals who have committed heinous crimes, and those crimes cannot easily be explained away, however, there are many prisoners who when treated with some sense of decency and dignity can go on to lead normal lives that are crime free. If you deny a prisoner the opportunity of getting out of prison for a few hours a couple of weeks before his/her release date simply to get a shirt and pair of trousers, and that prisoner can see that other more dangerous criminals are getting such basic concessions, then the result is anger and resentment. Many Ministers for Justice have been on bended knee to convicted terrorists yet the same Ministers abuse their authority to discriminate against prisoners who don’t have guns and bombs to back them up. Former Fianna Fail, Ministers for Justice, John O’Donoghue and Dermot Ahern made many representations on behalf of people such as mafia godfather, Michael McKevitt. It costs an average of one-thousand-five-hundred-Euro per week to keep a prisoner in jail according to the Irish Prison Service. If we remember that the vast majority of prisoners do not receive even basic rehabilitative care while in prison and the vast majority (90%) of persons convicted of non-sexual offences go on to reoffend, alternative crime prevention imaginaries must be sought. The Whitaker Committee (1985) recommended an increase in remission from the current 25% to 33% (O’Mahony.1993.p.217). Such an increase is now in place if prisoners under take certain courses and training while in prison. This shift to increased remission has a dual potential, the medium to long term benefits of shifting resource from security to rehabilitation will be realised in a reduction in recidivism. It is worth noting that this saving or redistribution of 8.3% (25% <33.3% = 24 Million per annum) of the prison budget is equal to the sum that was being spent on prisoner rehabilitation and work/training annually at the start of the new Millennium. Secondly it is hoped that prison Governors will have greater leverage in terms of prison discipline, the latter point relating to the need to take prisoners out of crime practice. Furthermore a limited number of cost effective Restorative Justice Projects aimed at first time offenders for crimes such as public order offences, possession of drugs for self-use, minor assaults and so forth, have shown a 90% success rate. Unfortunately much political and public discourse relating to crime prevention remains wedded to defensive principles of zero tolerance and so forth, we now know that those who spout about Zero Tolerance, have much more to hide than the person shop lifting to feed his/her family. In a penal system that frequently releases prisoners, some of whom have committed heinous crimes coupled with gratuitous violence, the killers of Garda Mc Cabe for example, long before their remission date, have set in place a secret and arbitrary system of non-judicial justice against persons convicted of sexual crimes. Temporary release and early release are equally denied to low risk sex offenders. In May 2010 there were 1000 prisoners on temporary/early release as the prison system was bursting at the seams, 90% of those on early release will reoffend as they are mainly drug and alcohol abusers, yet less than 10% of sex offenders will reoffend and they remain in prison to the final day of their sentence.In a rare disclosure of this non-judicial justice which continues to undermine the discretionary nature of the judiciary, Mr Justice Paul Carney, in a High Court Judgement, relating to an application under Article 40.4.2 of the Constitution taken by a prisoner claiming that his detention was unlawful as he was being denied rehabilitative care (Sex Offenders Programme), suggests that the prisoner making the application, should seek clemency from the Government, however, clemency has never been granted to any convicted sex offender, even where it has been proven at a later point, that the said sex offender was innocent (Farrell v State.2002.No.537.S.S.). This non-judicial injustice against persons convicted of sexual crimes, is aggravated by the fact that more dangerous criminals such as the IRA murderers of Garda Mc Cabe, were given temporary release as and when they sought such temporary release. There is no doubt that Ministers for Justice such as John O’Donoghue TD felt obliged to do business with the organised criminals in order to make life easy for himself as he jetted off around the world on tax payers money. Yet this discrimination against person convicted for sexual offending breaches Bunreacht na hEireann, Article 40.1, which states that:All Citizens shall be held equal before the law (p.146)It has been the case now for some time that weak Ministers for Justice have run scared of the Feminazi while at the same time bowing down to organised criminals such as the IRA and derivatives thereof. These Ministers for Justice in their weakened state has used what little power they have left to brutalise and discriminate against those who are already on the ground. Newburn (2002) quotes Garland (2000) to highlight the fact that governments are reactionary rather than proactive to certain types of crime when he says:By reactivating the old myth of the sovereign state; and by engaging in a more expressive and more intensive mode of punishment that purports to convey public sentiment and the full force of State authority (p.119).Elizabeth Stanko (2000) points out, that the public have a subconscious illumination of the risks posed by certain categories of criminality, this illumination is not necessarily driven by any visible threat, when she says:Proactive policing is often aimed at curtailing the violence committed by special groups – animal rights activists, football hooligans, drug gangs, and even ‘organised’ paedophiles. Certainly such groups do constitute danger to certain people. However, with the exception of paedophiles, few people spontaneously mention the danger posed by these other groups, unless they have been directly affected by them (p.253).It is clear that the Journophiles who contribute to the lurid tabloids help create these bogus-moral-panics in order to sell their social and moral corruption, yet the reality is that the focus by many Journophiles on the activities of sexual crime may have more to do with the concealment of their own drug snorting and perverted activities than it has with any concern for community safety, Tom Humphries being case-in-point. In relation to the criminal complex within Ireland, I would advance another reason for political discrimination in favour of persons convicted of ‘non’ sex crimes. Firstly, I would say that organised white/ non-white collar criminals and ‘politically’ motivated criminals, have a visible community. Corporate power, money and influence for white collar criminals. While leading non-white collar criminals have large family/criminal networks on large working class housing estates in major cities and towns in the Irish Republic. Many of these Ministers seek and secure tens of thousands of votes from these criminal networks. Politically motivated criminals such as Sinn Fein/IRA can and do encourage their supporters in marginal constituencies to give their preference votes to Fianna Fail and that courtesy is returned. This cross fertilisation can be seen in the example of Mary White who was elected to the Senate with the support of no less than twenty-three Sinn Fein councillors in 2002. One of these councillors was engaged and would later marry one of the criminals who murdered Garda Mc Cabe. And at a time when Sinn Fein/IRA continued with their acts of criminality, see also, Callanan, H. (2001) ‘No end to our children’s suffering’, Sunday Times, 9th September. In the constituency of Cavan/Monaghan, Sinn Fein’s Caoimhghin O’Caolain openly encouraged his supporters to give their second preference vote to his cousin, Fianna Fail’s, Dr Rory O’Hanlon. Although not exclusively, the person accused or convicted of sexual crime, particularly such a person from the lower socio-economic margins, is perceived as having no constituency. One only has to look at how the criminal justice system dealt with the upper class, child sex criminals, caught under Operation Amethyst and look at how the criminal justice system deals with people from the lower margins prosecuted for similar offences. These non-judicial discriminations against persons convicted of sexual crimes, only further create a climate of isolation and marginalisation for such persons. Brenda O’Brien, reminds us that:An important Canadian study shows that untreated sex offenders have a 35% recidivism rate, while it is less than 10% for those who are treated (Irish Times.2002).If we translate this study from dry statistics to real victims, many thousands of Irish men, women and children could be spared the horror of sexual criminality. However, as we now know some Ministers were more interested in spending tax payer’s money on their own inflated ego than they were on child protection. At the psychological Society of Ireland’s Annual Conference in Waterford the Granada Institute reported that twenty-one sex offenders convicted of abusing children showed:Encouraging near non-offender profile after a yearlong course of therapyThis rehabilitative potential is rarely seen in groups of criminals who have crime as a ‘career’ or ‘political’ motivation rather than a psychological or sociological disorder (O’Mahony.1993). Muncie (2002) says that:Up to 90% of young people leaving custody re-offend within two years (p.155)The fact that this systematic inequality in the administration of sentences, relating to persons convicted of sexual crimes, is sustained by an official willingness to give life to the public thirst for vengeance, or by an official fear of public outcry from the lurid tabloids and the Feminazi, about repeat offenders, underlines the pernicious influence and moral bankruptcy of a weak political administration. Yet one watches week after week as recently released terrorists, killers, drug users/dealers, ‘joy-riders’, armed robbers, return to prison for another few months after their latest exploits, that in most instances includes multiple victims. For the person convicted of sexual crimes, identified in the lurid tabloids and especially those convicted of crimes against children, there is the added inequality in sentence of a campaign of psychological and physical torture upon entering prison. This psychological and physical torture is mainly at the hands of fellow inmates and an unsympathetic administration. In a report on bullying in Irish Prisons conducted by psychologists at the University College Dublin, it was found that half of the prison population were the victims of bullying. When asked about bullying in the Irish Prison system Mr Sean Alyward, then Director General of the Irish Prisons service said:We are aware of the problem. We have been workings steadfastly to reduce the possibility of bullying and we continue to do our best. However, prison environments are fertile breeding grounds for bullies. When Human beings are confined together in restricted settings, bullying is frequently experienced. Investment over the past five years to tackle prison overcrowding had reduced the frequency of serious bullying. Simple things like single cell occupation or no more than two people in a cell, better shower and toilet facilities, have reduced bullying (The Sunday Times.2002.p.8).Soon after uttering these fine words Mr Alyward made a monetary settlement and issued an apology, in Dublin Civil Circuit Court, when a prisoner accused him of bullying and telling lies (Mc Kenna v Sean Alyward). Mr Alyward’s fine sentiments were being made at a time when one of Ireland’s most modern prisons, Wheatfield Prison, was having its single cells turned into double cells, there are now thirty-two prisoners on landings designed for sixteen prisoners, staff levels and ‘facilities’ remain static. However, on an upbeat yet cautious note, 10% of Wheatfield Prison is set aside for those who wish to be drug free, it is not a fallible drug free system, as urines can be doctored by inmates, but at least it’s a move in the right direction.Julia Twigg (2000) also reminds us that these physical and psychological constraints on the body and mind are part of the administrative psyche when she says:Fundamental to the operation of disciplinary institutions like the prison, the asylum, or the Poor Law institutions is the ordering of bodies within them. Such institutions constrain and control bodies of inmates (p.130).These abuses and inequalities against persons convicted of sexual crimes fly in the face of the rhetoric of The Management of Offenders: A Five Year Plan, published by the Department of Justice, when it states that:The removal of the right to free movement, and the (consequent) restriction of other rights such as the right to unrestricted communication with others, constitute, in them-selves, the whole penalty imposed on the convicted person and that any adverse conditions which add to that penalty are unwarranted (p.5).Former Minster for Justice, Michael Mc Dowell TD, who has since been rejected by the electorate as has his party the Progressive Democrats, clearly did not read his own Departments literature when he used his position to stop important research being carried out within the prison system. The administrative internment as set out above in relation to early release, temporary release, 17 hour per day lock up, and the psychological and physical torture, that many of these convicted persons are subjected to, clearly contradicts the rhetoric of the Department of Justice, the only people who can want to see fellow human beings treated in such a fashion are those who have much to hide themselves. Furthermore, Article 40 of the Irish Constitution (1937) states that:All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law.Article 40 has been trampled into the ground by successive Ministers for Justice, the Government of Ireland and an acquiescing Judiciary. John Muncie (2000) points to one of the great hurdles that liberal democracies have to address as they focus their criminal justice energies on those persons convicted of certain types of crime when he says:While legal wrongs provide the clearest focus, already notions of incivility (anti-social behaviour), malpractice (corporate/political corruption), risk (likelihood of committing further crimes) and violation (of Human Rights) are circulating on the margins of criminal definition and policy formulation. In themselves these ‘new’ signifiers – emanating from the right and left of the political spectrum – alert us to the on-going struggle over what is the proper constitution of ‘crime’ (p.225).In the Irish Republic it is clear that much criminal justice focus, remains on the legal wrongs of those from the lower socio-economic margins of society, we read week after week in the local papers about people stealing food for their children and being convicted before the courts, while the most heinous criminals who have left our country bankrupt continue to walk free and maintain their personal fortunes, fortunes just as criminal and perverse as the fortunes accumulated by the drug barons and terrorist God-fathers. Political/financial corruption (Ansbacher Report.2002, Flood Tribunal.2002, Moriarty Tribunal.2003 and Mahon Tribunal.2011) the list of the corrupt and the criminal is endless, yet the prosecutions are negligible, as the members of the Golden Circle continue to putt on the same green. This is not just about money, how many men, women and children have died in the 1980s/90s/00s and continue to die due to lack of key service provision, how many children have been raped, as the political and corporate criminals robbed our country blind.Many prisoners in ‘normal’ prison conditions become servile and dehumanised and seek individual survival by means of ‘prescribed’ medication or contraband drugs [1]. When one combines the ‘ordinary’ conditions of persons convicted of ‘non’-sex crimes, with the inequality visited upon many persons convicted of sex crimes, it is no surprise that many commit acts of ‘self’ harm and ‘self’ murder. One such death in custody is highlighted in the Irish Prison Service Report (1999-00) where a young prisoner described in certain media outlets as the ‘Beast’ hung himself, he was one of sixteen persons to die in custody in that period. The real criminals are of course the same tabloid Editors who publish their daily diet of filth to conceal their own deviance and duplicity. The broad sheets have now and again attempted to give serious focus to the criminal justice system and open up debate about the need for new imaginaries as can be seen from this extract from the Irish Times Editorial: There are times when a prison sentence is the correct response to breaches of the law and there are times when it is not. Such penal sanction can transform the futures of young men and rather than act as a deterrent, set them firmly on destructive careers of crime. That negative outcome is almost guaranteed when prisons become grossly overcrowded, are drug-infused and lack basic educational, psychiatric and rehabilitation services (Irish Times Editorial, 22/8/2011)The inability of many individuals accused or convicted of sex crimes, to face what many describe as a journey to hell, is highlighted by the suicide of a middle aged man in Dublin on the 2nd of July 2001, the day before he was to stand trial in the Central Criminal Court in Dublin, for alleged sex offences. A sixteen year old girl killed herself in 2001, rather than face the court and the three men who had gang-raped her. What we as a nation must ask ourselves, is, what is it if anything that separates us from the Taliban or other extreme dictatorships? For if accused persons, guilty or innocent, or victims alleged or real, would rather die than face our courts, and all that goes with such court appearances, the distance between Irish society and fascist dictatorships may not be that great.Psychotherapist, Marie Keenan, says of the feelings expressed by persons convicted of sexual crimes:I don’t know how some of these people have lived, with their detestation of their own humanity. Predominantly a sex offence was about seeking intimacy (Irish Times.2002).As mentioned above, through-out the closed prison system, convicted persons are locked in 12ft by 8ft concrete tombs, for at least seventeen hours per day, in some of the most modern of our prisons these cells designed for one person are now doubled up, leaving each prisoner with a space of 6ft by 4ft, which happens to be slightly larger than a standard coffin. An environment best summed up by Professor Paul O’Mahony (1996) when he says:For many prisoners, especially the many who are illiterate, lack initiative or are depressed, the isolation and enforced idleness is intolerable. The crushing boredom consequent on wide spread lack of productive work, and of meaningful education and training opportunities, and the long tedious hours of close confinement to the cell, add considerably to the air of despondency and frustration that hangs over most Irish prisons (p.105).This ‘tedious’ aspect of the prison system is not restricted to prisoners. The former Minister for Justice, John O’Donoghue (1997-02) while speaking at the Prison Officers Association (POA) Annual Conference in 2002, stated that in the year 2001, the total stock of 3200 Prison Officers, had taken, 60,000 days of sick pay in that year, which by any standard is phenomenal, still I am certain that if the prison officers had been aware of the vast amount of tax payer’s money O’Donoghue had squandered on his own self-indulgence, they would have had more to say about his pointed criticism of their sick pay bill. Prison officers pay accounts for over 70% of the prisons budget, with only 8.5% of the prison budget spent on rehabilitative facility. It may well be that Bentham’s panopticon, is the best explanation for the mental decay of prisoners and staff alike:The paradigm of disciplinary technique, offering the organisation of space and human beings in a visual order lays bare the structures of power. Surveillance is continuous and all are caught in the machine, even the one who watches (Twigg.2000.p.130).The Whitaker Committee (1985) stated:The greatest single obstacle to the personal development of prisoners and to reducing the reconviction rate is the nature of prison itself. The possible rehabilitative effects of education, training, welfare and guidance are offset by the triple depressant of overcrowding, idleness and squalor which dominates most Irish prisons (p.31).In relation to Wheatfield Prison which was purposely built with modern standards in mind, there are a range of services available to inmates, yet at least one quarter of inmates rarely leave their landing, with the exception of the weekly outing to the Tuck Shop or reception. The Tuck Shop is a small shop within the prison where prisoners can go once per week under escort to buy cigarettes, newspapers, sweets and minerals, prisoners earn two Euros per day for good industry and so can have fourteen Euros to spend in the shop each week. Prisoners go to reception once per week to collect any clothes left in by relatives. Having facilities is quite different from prisoners participating in them. Upon entering prison, each prisoner should be assigned to a mentor, this could, in many cases, with training and selection, be fellow prisoners. For example, many prisoners facilitate AA, NA, AVP, Listeners and so forth. Such mentoring could also be carried out by prison officers, all of whom could with minimal training transform the lives of inmates, and enhance their own career opportunities and reduce the chronic sick leave bill set out earlier. The mentor would work at first level with Probation and Welfare and a multi-disciplinary team would decide the best package for the individual concerned.All of the above said, while there are many good officers within the Irish prison system, many of them view working within rehabilitative programmes, as they would view turkeys voting for Christmas. The POA certainly has not stuck its neck out in campaigning for rehabilitative care. The physical, psychological, emotional and social environment of the prisoner must be given equal priority in order to produce best practice in the care, rehabilitation and resettlement of offenders. A multi-disciplinary approach must be adopted both inside and outside the prison system in order to improve child protection, crime prevention and community safety. A policy of ‘Zero Tolerance’ of bullying and victimisation must be instilled with clear policy objectives and codes of practice displayed visibly throughout the prison system. Zero Tolerance within the prison system is achievable as there are a variety of summary remedies available to impose sanctions against wrong doers. An important aspect of this deterrent portfolio as mentioned earlier is the 25% < 33% remission rates.In the UK including Northern Ireland higher rates of remission have been found to be effective in the deterrent/cost effectiveness portfolio. As mentioned above the deterrent aspect of the remission portfolio also contains substantial savings in that reduction in assaults on officers and inmates reduces the ever increasing number of civil actions against the state. These claims can amount to several million Euros per annum. Any progressive politician who is not brow beaten by the Feminazi and on his/her knees to organised terrorists/criminal, should be able to stand up and say enough is enough, we are going to try something new, yes prison for those who pose a serious threat to public safety, such as terrorists/drug barons and other category (A) prisoners, however, new imaginaries will be used across a wide area of the criminal justice system, including well managed Restorative Justice Programmes, electronic tagging, community service and so forth. A seamless transition from prison to the community for persons convicted of sexual offending must be a priority so that ignorance and denial in public discourse can be replaced with education and awareness by way of a multi-agency approach, where best practice in Child Protection, Crime Prevention and Community Safety can be achieved. A HSE report in July 2012: MORE THAN 80 cases of suspected child abuse or neglect are being reported every day to social services, figures show.Family members with drink or alcohol problems are the most common concerns, followed by children with emotional or behavioural problems and parental neglect or inability to cope. Of the 30,000 child protection and welfare concerns annually, more than 16,000 are concerns over children’s welfare, while about 13,000 are child protection issues such as suspected abuse.In addition, an unpublished breakdown of the origin of these reports shows for the first time the extent to which Gardaí and teachers are encountering suspected abuse on a daily basis.In the first quarter of this year, Gardaí were responsible for reporting most cases (28 per cent), followed by teachers (15 per cent), Health Service Executive-designated officers (10 per cent) or other HSE services such as mental health (10 per cent).The figures were compiled by the HSE as part of new standardised business processes, aimed at yielding more accurate information on child-protection services.The volume of concerns being reported by teachers and gardaí is likely to focus policymakers on the need to improve communications between State agencies. Poor information-sharing and a lack of inter-agency co-operation were highlighted as key issues in the recent Independent Child Death Review Group report.However, social policy experts such as Dr Helen Buckley of Trinity College Dublin have raised concerns that new laws – such as the Children First Bill – will not address poor collaboration between agencies. While the Bill will make it mandatory to report abuse or neglect, it will not require an obligatory response from services beyond the reporting of concerns, she has said.In 2012 the new coalition Government of Fine Gael/Labour is making new sounds in relation to criminal justice, child protection and community safety. The introduction of mandatory reporting of child rape/abuse will be a first real positive step in the right direction; if they fail to deliver on this promise then they fail completely.[1] Not all drugs are consumed by those prisoners to whom they are prescribed, on the black market in prison, medication is currency – for example – methadone a heroin substitute/sleepers/valium are traded for tobacco, cannabis, heroin, E-Tabs, acid and so on.Senior Social Worker Speaks ExclusivelySenior Social Worker who says that she could not speak out while employed by the HSE and could still face prosecution due to the confidentiality clause in her contract of employment. However, she feels so strongly about certain issues that she has decided to speak with this author where her anonymity will be protected.Q. How long where you a Social Worker?A. For over twenty years.Q. And is it the case that you have retired in the normal course of events?A. Yes, I was due to retire earlier but worked on due to the shortages in staff.Q. Where in Ireland did you work while you were a Social Worker?A. I worked in three area Health Boards, this was due mainly to my various promotions and I went to those areas where expertise was absent due to retirements or simply lack of staff.Q. Your main reason for contacting me by email was the fact that I had written a number of articles on sexual crime in Ireland, is that correct?A. Yes, I stumbled across your Blog when I was researching a paper on sexual crime, and I would have to say that your Blogs appeared to be saying exactly what my experience had told me. Although I would have to say I was surprised that you had such an insight into how the HSE and criminal justice system work.Q. Well I am sure you are well aware that my journey through life has not been a smooth one?A. Yes, I am well aware of your past, I have read your BlogsQ. Has Child Protection changed for the better in your twenty years as a Social Worker?A. The simple answer is No. Social workers and other professionals continue to have far too much power when it comes to dealing with Child Protection issues.Q. Can you expand on that idea of professionals having too much power?A. The reality is that there is no mandatory reporting of child abuse including child rape in this country that means that a child reporting rape to a teacher, a GP, even a Social Worker cannot be certain that the information provided will be passed onto the Gardai. This means that effectively people like myself can decide what cases we report and what cases we keep quiet. You can imagine how this works in small towns and villages.Q. Are you saying that a GP has no legal obligation to report the rape of a child to the Gardai?A. Absolutely not and I have witnessed many cases where such reports to GPs and other professionals have been hidden for many years and only come to light when a rape victim becomes an adult and pursues a criminal prosecution themselves.Q. In such cases are we talking about children sexually abused by family members?A. That would make up a great deal of such cases but not exclusively. You have to remember that in rural areas, small towns and villages a GP’s income can be heavily dependent on a small number of extended families, for a GP to report the rape of a child to the Gardai it could cost him/her their lively hood in that area.Q. Are you saying that economic considerations are taken into account in matters of Child Protection?A. Well that’s nothing new, as you have often said yourself the Government could find millions to spend on top hotels and other luxuries yet they could not find the small amount of money needed to ensure the protection of children in their own care.Q. How wide spread a problem is child abuse in Ireland?A. People try to suggest that there are varying degrees of child abuse, however, in my experience those who physically abuse children will also have the propensity to sexually abuse children, and the important thing for an abuser is the objectification of the victim. The abuser views the child as being their property and therefore they can do what they like to that child without facing any real prospect of punishment. There will be exceptions to every rule but my experience suggests that all abuse should be treated with equal seriousness. Each of the fourteen area Health Boards confirm approximately one-thousand cases of child abuse each year, that is approximately fourteen-thousand confirmed cases of child abuse in Ireland each year, the degrees of abuse will vary from excessive beatings, serious neglect to multiple rapes. Q. How much goes undetected?A. That is impossible to answer, however, I think we only touch the tip of the ice-berg, children are easily silenced and when those who facilitate or conceal such crime don’t face any punishment, this leaves perpetrators of abuse with a free hand.Q. But surely many cases are prosecuted through the courts?A. Less than four per cent of confirmed cases of child sexual abuse are ever prosecuted, there are thousands of files within the Health Boards where men and women in equal number have admitted to sexually abusing children and none of those files have ever been passed onto the Gardai. I have seen cases where people who have admitted raping several children were simply sent by Social Workers to the Granada Institute for counselling, those abused children remained in the family home. The HSE is legally bound and cannot release this confidential information to anyone, even if that person is working with children, if the person is not prosecuted then their name does not show up when employers are vetting potential employees.Q. Why do you think the Government have failed to introduce Mandatory reporting of child rape?A. I honestly believe that child abuse is too close to home for many, I was often lobbied by County Councillors and TDs not to send certain files forward to the Gardai, Politicians had a great deal of influence when they were on the Health Board Committees and indeed they still have power and influence.Q. Are you saying that Politicians would lobby Health Board staff in order to stop prosecutions?A. What I am saying is that in certain cases where politicians were contacted by perpetrators or the family of perpetrators and asked to contact the Health Board with a view to stopping matters going forward to the Gardai those politicians contacted us and in most cases those cases did not go forward to the Gardai.Q. What is your view on the scandal now hitting the Catholic Church about the rape and sexual molestation of children by members of its religious orders? A. Firstly, I think that it is important to point out that the Catholic Church did not conceal these crimes on their own, there are many files relating to members of religious orders gathering dust in Health Board offices, many of these reported cases were never investigated due to the power of the Church and their friends in high places. I did not need the Ferns, Murphy or Ryan Reports to tell me that there had been a massive cover up. However, what I would say is that any case that I handed over to the Gardai was fully and comprehensively investigated and prosecutions followed from many of those investigations in the three Health Board areas where I worked, however, I did not have control over all cases and many were buried upon instruction.Q. Do you believe that we have got the full story about what happened within the Catholic Church?A. Absolutely not, the cover ups are continuing, thousands of religious were simply moved from pillar to post to cover up their crimes, few if any prosecutions will follow from the three reports that I have mentioned and that means that thousands of known child rapists continue to live in communities all over this country and further a field and nobody is aware of their crimes, indeed, even the Gardai have no legal right to monitor the activities of these individuals setting aside the fact that the task is beyond the budget of any police service.Q. That brings me on to another question, setting aside those who have not been prosecuted, are those who have been prosecuted for sexual crimes against children being monitored in accordance with best practice in child protection?A. No, is the simply answer, the Gardai are doing their best with the legislation and resource available to them, however, the reality is that persons convicted of sexual offending have no access to rehabilitative care while in prison, they are simply warehoused and then thrown out onto the street with no follow up services available. Some have post release supervision orders but these are simply a waste of time as we don’t have the staff to follow through. The obligation for a convicted person to notify the Gardai of their address within seven days of their release from prison is useless as it is legal to give no fixed abode as their legal address. All of the International standards set down by countries such as Canada are completely ignored in Ireland. What we need is a seamless transition for such offenders where they are firstly given access to rehabilitative opportunity in prison such as the specific programme that was run in Arbour Hill Prison, upon release they need to be safely housed and given job or training opportunities. International best practice suggests that those who have committed sexual crimes can be best monitored while in full time work/training or education and are appropriately housed.Q. Do you believe that Mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse would reduce child sexual crime in Ireland?A. It would have an immediate effect; unlike the 2001 Sex Offenders Act which since its introduction sexual crimes right across the board has went sky high, ill-considered legislation simply facilitates sexual crime. If people who are concealing and facilitating sexual crime from the Gardai know they will face prosecution if they do not come forward then the sea in which perpetrators swim will soon dry up. Fathers/Mothers, Uncles/Aunts, Grannies/Granddads, Bishops/Cardinals, Politicians/Social Workers the list is endless will soon step forward if they know that they will face public prosecution if they do not report the sexual abuse of children.Q. What I found interesting about our initial conversation was that you said that unlicensed Mind Altering drugs are continuing to be feed to children in this country is that correct?A. Yes, Mind Altering drugs that are not licensed in this country for children such as Seroxat are still being prescribed for children yet they have been banned for child consumption in all other European Countries. This is particularly dangerous when dealing with children who are claiming abuse.Q. Are you saying that children who are making allegations of abuse are being given Mind Altering drugs that are not licensed in this country?A. Yes, this can have a very dangerous out come in such cases and those prescribing the drugs know very well the effects of such unlicensed drugs. For example, if a child makes and allegation of sexual abuse against a parent or relative and the family would rather that these allegations were concealed it is very easy to get a GP to proscribe something like Seroxat for the child in question. Seroxat should not be used on children as it has mind and mood altering effects, the result is that the child becomes abusive and disruptive and the focus moves from the alleged perpetrator to what is now an abusive and disruptive child. Equally and I have seen all of this happen, Seroxat coupled with discredited practice such a regression therapy can take a child from making allegations of physical abuse to allegations of sexual abuse, rape and even satanic ritual. I have watched in horror as judges have handed down heavy sentences to people as the judge said the child had tried to take their own life as a result of the alleged abuse, yet I knew and so did those involved in the cases, that these children had not tried to take their own life until they had been feed Seroxat or some other Mind Altering drug.Q. Are you then suggesting that some allegations of sexual abuse may have arisen from the misuse of unlicensed Mind Altering drugs and such discredited practice as regression therapy?A. I am saying that very clearly, I have seen it happen and I have been supported in my views by Forensic Psychologists and other professionals, however, in the present environment of moral panic and knee jerk political reaction where social policy is dictated by Tabloid headlines I doubt that any serious discussion of these matters will be had for some time to come.Q. Are you saying that people may have been convicted before the courts on false evidence, evidence that may well be true in the mind of the alleged victim but was invented through the misuse of unlicensed mind altering drugs and discredit practices such as regression therapy? A. In my view, any case that has involved the use of unlicensed Mind Altering drugs such as Seroxat should never have went to court, and if such cases have went to court and a conviction was secured then those cases should be over turned with immediate effect. I am an advocate for international standards of best practice in child protection, I am not an advocate for miscarriages of justice and in my view there have been many of them. The vast majority of those accused of child sexual molestation normally admit their crimes, however, there is an over whelming burden on juries in this country to believe the ‘victim’, why would he/she say such a thing about a relative, however, if the jury knew what some of these children are being subjected to I think the verdicts could be different in some cases. I think that Barristers, Judges, the Gardai and others need to be aware that unlicensed Mind Altering Drugs and discredited practices are being used behind the scenes. This evidence is never produced in Court and even if it were the Courts would have no idea what they were dealing with. I have seen children so indoctrinated that they have been able to reproduce their original statements to the Gardai with 100% word accuracy to the Court, even though the original statement may have been made years earlier.Q. But surely no professional is going to allow what could be false evidence to go before the court if it means an innocent person going to jail?A. It all depends on the case, some professionals like the headlines as much as everyone else, if there is a drive against a particular individual then all the stops will be pulled out to secure a conviction, I have seen it done, but I had no control over the said cases.Q. I am absolutely amazed that unlicensed Mind Altering drugs are being used in such cases, can anything be done?A. I think the pharmaceutical companies are very powerful and they have to sell their drugs, the Irish Medicines Board are too reliant on third party research that can often be traced back to the pharmaceuticals, GPs have far too much autonomy, and newly qualified psychologists are simply learning their trade as they go along, psychology is not a science yet certain discredited practices coupled with the use of unlicensed Mind Altering drugs can have a deep mental, psychological, emotional and medical impact on an individual and in particular a child. I don’t think any Government will have the political will to face up to what is a momentous task.Q. Finally, what would your advice be to the Government in relation to cases of alleged childhood abuse where Seroxat or any other Mind Altering drug was administered to the alleged victim?A. All convictions based on the evidence of any child or children who were given Seroxat or any other Mind Altering drug should be immediately quashed, there should be an immediate end to the use of unlicensed Mind Altering drugs such as Seroxat for any child in any circumstances but particularly in cases where allegations of abuse are being made. It is a crazy situation where an unlicensed Mind Altering drug can be administered to children by GPs and others, not all Doctors are good Doctors. Such discredited techniques as regression therapy should be banned in all cases relating to allegations of childhood abuse. We need a system of checks and balances in which GPs and others are regularly checked to ensure that they are meeting with best practice when it comes to child protection in particular. We cannot continue with the bizarre situation where some GPs are operating surgeries out of their front sitting room without any regular checks or balances in place by the HSE.Thank you for this insightful interview, I can only hope that it will be used to help bring about best practice in Child Protection in Ireland.When contacted about the allegations in this interview, The Irish Medicines Board referred me to the following statement on their web site in relation to the use of the unlicensed Mind Altering drug Seroxat:SEROXAT (PAROXETINE) CONTRAINDICATED FOR CHILDRENThe Irish Medicines Board (IMB) confirmed that the findings of recent Seroxat clinical studies undertaken by the manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) found that it was not effective in children and adolescents with major depressive disorder and showed an increased rate of self-harm, suicidal behaviour and false-memory-syndrome in children and adolescents treated in the studies. As a result of this new information the IMB considers that Seroxat should not be used to treat children and teenagers under the age of 18 years. The IMB has ensured healthcare professionals have been advised of this latest information and have amended the Patient Information Leaflet (PIL) and product licence to contraindicate use of Seroxat in patients less than 18 years of age with major depressive disorder.The IMB re-emphasises to healthcare professionals that Seroxat is not and has not been licensed for use in children or adolescents in Ireland. However, doctors have the authority to prescribe any product for a patient under their care if it is deemed appropriate. The IMB wants to stress the importance for doctors, patients and parents to be aware of this new advice and for patients under 18 years who may be taking Seroxat to consult their doctor for advice. It is essential that patients taking Seroxat do not suddenly discontinue use of their treatment, because of the risk of withdrawal effects. Any changes must take place under medical supervision.
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