Is it it time for "children" who commit adult crimes to be treated as criminals?

Devastating news of 3 more young people, including 18yr old Irish woman, killed in what has been reported as a high-speed crash at 200km p/h in Iceland.

At 18, the Irishwoman may be legally an adult but I feel an inverse sense that she is still a child.

I don't know who the driver was nor do I know if its factual that travelling at 200km p/h, if true, the non-drivers were complicit in any way with a reckless nature of driving. Personally my instinct is to hold the driver responsible.

This topic is complex.
 
Sister Sara said:
Could a case be made for armed ERU to get involved here to use lethal force against lethal force? I think so
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Yes, if the risk to life is immediate.

From RTE: "The youth, who cannot be identified because he is a minor, appeared before the court today following his arrest in connection with the incident last night."
Can we legislate to start naming these minors?
 
This situation works against any proposal to imprison offenders.

RTE news website headline :- "Prison system 'sinking under weight' of high numbers, says IPRT"

"Ireland's prison system is "sinking under the weight of prison numbers", according to a report by the Irish Penal Reform Trust.

It also states that people with mental health difficulties are being held in prison without access to appropriate care."

"Ireland’s prison population continued to increase last year, reaching more than 5,700 people, while the prison estate has capacity for approximately 4,700 people."

People with mental health difficulties are being held in poor conditions in prisons because the mental health system lacks resources, staff and bed capacity, no-one wins while conditions deteriorate everywhere.
 
mathepac said:
Ireland's prison system is "sinking under the weight of prison numbers", according to a report by the Irish Penal Reform Trust.
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If only there was some way of, I dunno, maybe build more prisons??

I know it sounds nuts and letting criminals out after only serving a small portion of their sentence is definitely the way to go but still there is the nagging sense that there could be another solution.

If only there we had architect type people and people who could put blocks upon blocks to build structures??

Likely I'm going to be shot down for this lunatic suggestion but think it might be an important alternative that our Minister for Justice should consider?
 
mathepac said:
People with mental health difficulties are being held in poor conditions in prisons because the mental health system lacks resources, staff and bed capacity, no-one wins while conditions deteriorate everywhere.
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In my direct experience the gross inefficiencies within the healthcare system and the structural issues with the Courts system also feeds into this problem. There are ample resources within the Healthcare system but they are very inefficiently used, though Ireland is in no way an outlier in that.

We criminalise some forms of addiction in this country but not others. That's also a big part of the problem.
 
While the authorities whinge and moan about the lack of capacity and resources in the health system, a perfectly good hospital in Upper Baggot Street is being allowed to rot with no efforts that I can see being made to preserve it. This was our local hospital when I was growing up, serving the D2/D4 areas.
 
mathepac said:
While the authorities whinge and moan about the lack of capacity and resources in the health system, a perfectly good hospital in Upper Baggot Street is being allowed to rot with no efforts that I can see being made to preserve it. This was our local hospital when I was growing up, serving the D2/D4 areas
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I agree but with the caveat that a badly laid out hospital is far more expensive run run in terms of both financial and human resourced, than a well designed hospital.
That's why the new Children's hospital is such a great thing and why the build cost doesn't really matter. Over the 100 year lifespan of a hospital the initial capital cost will amount to less than 5% of the total lifetime cost. (and it's nowhere near the most expensive children's hospital in the world, in fact it's not even the most expensive in the UK and Ireland).

I hope the same long term view is taken if and when we build a new prison; the build cost is almost irrelevant in the context of the lifetime cost of the facility.
 
mathepac said:
a perfectly good hospital in Upper Baggot Street is being allowed to rot with no efforts that I can see being made to preserve it.
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It was deemed too expensive to refurbish to modern requirements years ago, looks like it's destined to become a hotel which would be a more fitting use.
 
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