Building Sustainable Communities – The Role of Housing Policy

The Barriers to Community

Barriers to community?

© D. Speirs

Building sustainable communities is extremely difficult in Ireland today. In many urban areas, at least, the sense of community has almost disappeared.

There are several reasons why this is so:

First, increased mobility means that many people expect to move from one community to another and so may have fewer bonds with the community in which they currently live. People move job, and therefore move home, much more often than their parents did. Many others see a first home as simply ‘getting a foot on the property ladder’ and when they are able to purchase a bigger house, or a house nearer to their work, they will uproot themselves and move. 

Crime and Punishment: A Christian Perspective

Introduction

Balancing the diverse elements of justice

© JCFJ

At the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles, it was usual to distinguish between paramilitary prisoners and ODCs – ‘ordinary decent criminals’. The terminology is suggestive, even provocative: is it ever right to consider criminals as ‘ordinary’, much less ‘decent’? Certainly, it would be altogether wrong to trivialise the plight of victims, and especially victims of violent crime, by too lightly using a euphemism like ‘ordinary decent criminals’.

What Does God Think of Irish Prisons?

Introduction

Mural painted by a prisoner; Mountjoy Prison Chapel

© D. Speirs

The April 2008 issue of Working Notes entitled, ‘Thornton Hall Prison – A Progressive Move?’, has inspired the following article, which is written from the viewpoint of Catholic theology. I have never been jailed myself; however, courtesy of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform I had the privilege of visiting a number of Irish prisons some years ago. I also visit a friend who is currently serving a jail sentence.

Women in Prison: The Corston Report

Introduction

Baroness Jean Corstonaddressing the seminar, \'Women in Prison: The Need for a Critical Review\'

© JCFJ

In March 2006, I was commissioned by the then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke MP, to undertake ‘a review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system’ of England and Wales. My report was published in March 2007.¹ In December 2007, the Government issued an official response to the findings of the review.²

In this paper I want, first of all, to say something about the background to the review. I will then say what I found, what I concluded, and what is now happening in response to my report.

July, 2008

Working Notes Issue 58 Editorial

‘Women should be imprisoned only if the offences they have committed are of such seriousness that the protection of the public, or the interests of justice, require that they receive a custodial sentence’; ‘where women need to be imprisoned, they should be detained in small, geographically-dispersed, multi-functional custodial units, not large prisons’; ‘both custodial and non-custodial penalties should try to address the complex social and personal problems that generally underlie women’s offending’; ‘women’s prisons should never be located on the same sites as prisons for men’.