Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Senator Walsh misunderstands me. My point is that the deprivation of liberty is the penalty. We take liberty for granted to such an extent that it is impossible to appreciate the effect of losing it. Crime cannot be separated from deprivation.

The other type of prisoner I knew related to the time I spent with the Simon Community. Having spoken to paramilitary prisoners in Portlaoise and homeless, mostly alcoholic, former prisoners who used the Simon Community, I am not persuaded that prison works in any way as a deterrent. Prison serves one purpose successfully and that is keeping dangerous people away from the general population. Of all the petty criminals I have known, those in prison for shoplifting, minor assault, drunk and disorderly behaviour, vagrancy, and so on, whether the penalty was imprisonment for six months or ten years was a matter of total indifference. This is true of a large section of the criminal class. We should not lock up serious drug pushers because the penalties will deter them but because it keeps us safe from them. This does not render us as safe as we would wish but prison is the safest place for such offenders.

Protecting society from specific people is one reason for having prisons, but it protects us from only a certain number of them. I am profoundly sceptical of the logic behind the philosophy that sees prison acting as a deterrent. The Minister is a very able man, regardless of my views on his opinions, and he may have access to serious, intellectually sustainable evidence that shows prison to work as a deterrent or to have a rehabilitative function. If this is the case, I would like to see it. I feel there may be a good deal of evidence that prison has the opposite effect.

There is a romantic notion that some people wish to go to prison to escape the winter, which may be true of two or three people in desperate circumstances, but it does not apply to the many homeless alcoholics I have met nor does it apply to the overwhelming bulk of minor criminals who spend a week here and there in prison. I recall a young man, now in his 40s and living permanently on the streets, who spent seven of the eight years between 13 and 21 either in juvenile detention or prison and it made no difference to his often obnoxious behaviour. A few people tried to help him along the way, not that it would be of any consolation to a person assaulted by him.

We must ask what prisons work towards. Many felt they worked for the Prison Officers' Association and I am glad the Minister achieved what he did in this regard because the practices tolerated were an embarrassment to the trade union movement.