Irish Penal Reform Trust launches new website

by Michelle Clarke - Social Justice, Please Sat Sep 18, 2004 23:47

Hi it is Michelle – on a pleasant Saturday in September.

Last night – the Pat Kenny show linked my mind to the recent Irish Penal Reform Trust article on indymedia (if interested in this area, I would highly recommend the site).

A guest, a barrister (incidently a mature student) has decided to grapple with the ‘slopping out’ issue for prisoners in the Irish prisons, on the grounds of the trauma caused and lack of human rights. An interesting debate ensued ……. One point that was not raised when mentioning the number of people in cells, is the fact that originally the Victorians involved in the designs of prisons thought about solitude and therefore one person per cell – the hope was that the person would find resolve.

I agree with the person who said that Department of Justice and the Prison Services have failed to meet the humanitarian needs of people in Irish prisons in the so-called ‘Celtic Tiger gone Tortoise’ Island of Ireland. Another person commented that if a prisoner was a member of a political organization at high rank, the last thing on their mind would relate to would be the sensitivities of ‘slopping out’. Here, I say what a presumption…..who really knows the mind of another!!!!!! Lets have a look at Stigma related anxieties and phobias…………. People only need to take account of the conditions for people with mental health conditions in our Prisons. Surely, we have a duty to look at rehabilitative options and treat people with basic human respect.

I do not know what radio station was on recently but there were a few presenters discussing a problem that they had heard about. One would like to be accusatory for the inexperience of the commentators but in honesty one felt they were handling it as well as they could.

It made me think of articles written on irishhealth.com about panic attacks and phobias.

You ask what was the topic?

The topic simply was that more and more men are encountering problems using urinals in public places. The fear stops the urine flowing.

I am less inclined to think this is a new problem but rather it is one that is now being discussed.

It relates to anxiety levels and fears, possibly irrational. The main point is that others experience the same and not to fret too much.

It can happen to women also and it is an insecurity/anxiety/phobia.


We need to be careful by stating outright a person is a prisoner and therefore can be left without rights. A person is a person and humiliation is never acceptable.

Maybe we ought to revert to a philsopher’s quotation ‘He who has the reason why can deal with any how’, Yes, Nietszche and he too was a man who chose suicide.


Lets ask questions

I read recently that a large proportion of prisoners are there for debt related matters.
We need to really grasp the number of suicides that are carried out within.
We need to ask why people with mental health problems do not have the same procedures and guidelines applied.
We need to define mental health problems from social related problems. Too many are released from prison without the necessary coping strategies of surviving the pace of today’s society. Nobody thinks about what a mental health definition means and impact it has on basic home living skills. Medications have lots of side effects – I know but I am lucky.

As a woman who sustained a head injury at 32 and who is bipolar and medicated; the society created in Ireland today is very regimented and conformist so it is real easy to be excluded.

I
Michelle.

Food for thought perhaps!
‘There is an emerging consensus in our society and Church on the importance of people acting as mentors and guides to others. Developmental psychologists are affirming the contribution mentors can make regarding career and professional choices; self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Alanon, speak of the value of sponsors for ongoing recovery…..As a pastoral theologian and former chemical dependency counselor, I have been interested in these various forms of mentoring for some time…It depends more on mutuality; reciprocity and friendship than direction given from the ‘top down’

Ex: Mentoring – the Ministry of Spiritual Kinship
Edward C. Sellner (1979)