Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I neglected earlier to acknowledge victims in this context, as we should always do. I appreciate that Mr. Mullins did, but I did not and I should have. I support the call for the refurbishment of some of the houses in the Dóchas Centre. A quick paint job would not do any harm, although I appreciate he is working on that as a matter of urgency.

I wish to return to a point Mr. Graham and Mr. Mullins each made in slightly different ways regarding the background of the young people coming into the Prison Service. They both mentioned how people tend to come from very specific deprived areas. I return to research I have mentioned at previous committee meetings. In 2007, the Association for Criminal Justice Research and Development assessed the backgrounds of young people appearing before the Children Court. The 400 young people who were assessed at the court at that time were predominantly male, lived in specific and recurring disadvantaged localities in each of the court areas examined, did not live with their both of their parents and were not in full-time mainstream education. In fact, 86% of those for whom education information was available were not engaged in mainstream education. It is important to keep highlighting this point about the specific disadvantage that can exist. We have not managed to interrupt or change that.

Mr. Graham went on to refer - I think he and I are reading the same literature on criminal justice penal reform - to containment, rehabilitation, punishment and so on, and the research clearly shows a pattern of criminal behaviour, particularly in males between the ages of 20 and 35. I interpreted his point as indicating that people have got sick of this pattern over time, although he might correct me if I am not using the correct phrase. If that is what we are seeing persistently in the literature internationally, how can we interrupt it?

Senator McDowell referred to making determinations about life sentences and I accept his point about the challenges of doing so at the time of the conviction, but there are a number of people who are serving 30- or 40-year sentences as life sentences and others who will serve much less. Is there a value, from the perspective of someone in the prison system, in specifying a length of time, whether after the first or second year, to give a sense of certainty or a pathway? Are there other ways of thinking about this that are helpful from the perspective of the person in prison?