Sir, - Your report of the rape of a prisoner by his cellmate paints a vivid picture of the brutalising effects of custody (The Irish Times, May 7th). The horrors visited upon Anthony Cawley while in institutional care as a child were revisited upon his victims with awful consequences.
One is reminded of the passage in Oscar Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol, where the poet-turned-prisoner bewails the fact that, "The vilest deeds like poison weeds, bloom well in prison air; it is only what is good in Man that wastes and withers there".
Mr Cawley's anguish, and the harm he has caused to others, would seem to amount to a powerful argument for the minimum use of custody. However, despite our low and declining crime rate, we continue to resort to imprisonment much more frequently than our European neighbours, and the rapid expansion of our prison system proceeds apace.
It is high time to call a halt to the prison building programme and to think hard about innovative responses to the problem of crime and rehabilitative programmes for offenders. This is the best way to prevent the next victim. - Yours, etc., Dr. Ian O'Donnell,
Director, Irish Penal Reform Trust, Lower Dominick Street, Dublin 1.