Month: December 2022

The subject of living conditions in modern prisons is something that can start many arguments. On the face of it, life doesn’t seem that bad on the inside. For many of the inmates, living conditions in prison are an improvement on what they would be used to on the outside.

They have a roof over their heads, regular mealtimes, recreation, access to education and health care so they are well cared for. They are in this country at any rate, but they might be even better off in other jurisdictions.

RTE reported that The Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas (ICPO) called for a well-resourced, transparent, fair and expeditious repatriation system to allow prisoners abroad serve the remainder of their sentences in Ireland. It is estimated that at any one time, there are up to 1,200 Irish people in prison overseas in approximately 30 countries around the world.

I didn’t know that and neither did I know that a significant majority of those are in prisons in the UK, with relatively high numbers in the USA, Australia and throughout Europe. Those prisoners can apply to transfer to an Irish prison to serve the remainder of their sentence here, but it seems that many of them are happy enough to stay where they are.

The ICPO circulated 1,100 questionnaires to Irish prisoners abroad and received only 114 anonymous responses. That’s just over 10% which suggests there wasn’t much interest in the survey, or else the prisoners don’t want to move.

Serving time can’t be easy though, whether it’s home or away, and some of those who did respond reported experiencing mental health difficulties, feelings of isolation and having little time outside their cell. The lack of visits was also an issue, which isn’t surprising. I would expect prisoners to feel isolated and to have an issue with being confined in a small space with little time outside. That’s what prison is all about.

It’s also understandable that overseas prisoners might be suffering from lack of visits. If you end up in an Australian prison, the family won’t be popping over every weekend with a food parcel. Unless you have a large circle of friends living in that country, visits are going to be few and far between and that’s tough but so it should be.

There has to be an element of discomfort associated with prison life. It is after all, supposed to be a deterrent so I was surprised when I heard that inmates in some prisons here were going to have analogue telephones installed in their cells. I thought it was a step too far but according to an article in the Irish Examiner, it has already happened.

Landline telephones have been installed in 804 prison cells, and work is underway to extend the convenience to every inmate in the State. Four of the country’s 12 detention facilities now have an analogue telephone in every cell, meaning inmates in Castlerea, Cloverhill, Limerick and Midlands prisons can make phone calls without leaving their rooms.

The purchase and installation of the equipment has cost a total of €1,131,688 to date, and it’s intended to provide “in-cell telephony” for prisoners in Cork, Portlaoise, Wheatfield, and the Dóchas Centre by the end of this year. The system currently allows outgoing calls only, although a spokesman for the Irish Prison Service (IPS) said a “dial-in” system may be considered in future.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee said maintaining contact with family and friends while in custody plays an important role in the rehabilitation of prisoners. “The in-cell telephony project will enhance the prison service’s ability to provide prisoners with a platform to support this contact,” she said.

They’ve done the same thing in the UK where they say family ties are a vital part of rehabilitation and maintaining those ties can cut reoffending by 40%, ultimately helping to reduce the number of future victims of crime. We’ll have to wait and see how that works out.

Prisoners already have contact with their families through in-person visits and during Covid 19, video calls were introduced which many prisoners preferred because they got to see more family members on a video call than they would in person. It also saved their visitors from having to travel and from the security checks necessary in the prison system.

Prisoners are entitled to be treated humanely but some argue that the prison system is too accommodating. Many of their victims want to see offenders suffer. They want payback and would prefer to see them locked up, fed on bread and water, and the key thrown away.

Others would welcome a return to the days of hard labour. Back to the chain gangs where prisoners had to lay railway tracks or break rocks like Paul Newman did in the movie, ‘Cool Hand Luke’.

Regardless of the conditions though, it is the lack of freedom that tests them. Not being able to spend time with the family at Christmas, go for a pint, walk the dog or go to a football game are the things that challenge them. That’s the real punishment.

And that’s ok too. Prison isn’t meant to be a holiday camp. Offenders are incarcerated as a punishment for the wrongs they have done but the system is also meant to rehabilitate them. To prepare them for reintegration to society on completion of their sentence. But is it working?

The high proportion of inmates re-offending, and the demand for more prison space would seem to suggest there is a weakness in the system. If having a phone in a cell can change that outcome and help to break the cycle of life for inmates, then maybe it’s worth a shot. If it works, we will all benefit, so maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all.

If you ever find yourself down by the river in Whitepoint, just outside the town of Cobh, you will see the remains of an old pier sloping into the water. It doesn’t look like much. In fact, you would hardly recognise it as a pier because it has fallen into disrepair over the last fifty years or so. You shouldn’t dismiss it though because it has a serious piece of history attached to it.

It’s known as the American Pier because it was extended by the United States armed forces in 1917. It was needed to bring the sick and injured ashore for treatment in the hospital they had also built to cater for their wounded servicemen. To get a better understanding of this we need to go back in time to 1917 and the first world war.

At that time, the British had imposed a ‘distant blockade’, blocking off the North Sea to most shipping and cargoes, to cut off supplies bound for Germany. In early 1917, the Germans retaliated by doing the same thing to Britain and used their U-boat fleet to defend it. They declared the area around the British Isles to be a war zone and warned that any ships entering that space would be sunk without warning.

The German submarine campaign was already worrying the United States, but this new development had them even more concerned. They were afraid Britain would be overrun by the Germans, so they decided to send support to the British Navy who were already operating out of Cork Harbour. On 4 May 1917, a flotilla of destroyers arrived in Queenstown under the command of Commander Joseph Taussig, captain of the USS Wadsworth.

In ‘The US Navy at Queenstown’ by Daire Brunicardi, he describes how the flotilla of unusual vessels appeared off the Daunt lightship at the approaches to Cork Harbour. They were destroyers of the United States Navy. With their low profile and four stubby funnels, they looked different to the ships of the British Navy, so familiar in Cork Harbour after almost three years of war.

The small naval dockyard on Haulbowline Island in Cork Harbour and other dockyards and facilities in the area struggled to cope with the number of ships and men of the British and US navies. The naval hospital on Haulbowline and the local hospital in Queenstown were also overwhelmed by the amount of US personnel needing treatment for minor injuries and illnesses so they created their own medical facility in Whitepoint.

They built a naval hospital, recreational facilities, stores and radio communications, which extended from the town right out to Whitepoint. There was no shortage of equipment either. There were two depot ships, dozens of large motor-launch ‘sub-chasers’, tugs and even a squadron of submarines. Soon after, naval aircraft arrived, with air stations at Aghada in Cork Harbour, and on Whiddy Island in Bantry Bay.

There must have been a huge buzz in Cobh at the time with all that activity and in ‘The Queenstown Patrol 1917, a diary of Commander Joseph Taussig’, the author described the scene when he first arrived in Cork Harbour.

“We landed at the naval pier (Haulbowline) where the American Consul met us. The streets were full of curious people and there seemed to be a great many men for a country supposed to be at war. I have learned since that the Irish people have generally held aloof from any participation in the war and do not consider themselves a party to it.”

Taussig had some observations on the Irish countryside too as he later sailed up the river to Cork to call on the Lord Mayor. “The ride up the river is a beautiful one and took only forty minutes. Judging from the outside appearance, Ireland has not been affected in any way by the war. The country is green and dotted with cattle. The wharves at Cork were busy and the streets of Cork were crowded.”

He also described the task ahead of them. ”The problem before us was a serious one. As soon as we pass beyond the defence of the harbour, we face death until we return. We must presume that a submarine is always watching us, and although we may go for days without seeing a submarine or anything suspicious, we must not relax for an instant or we might lose our opportunity to destroy a submarine, or it may give the submarine a chance to fire a torpedo into us.”

According to Brunicardi, the Americans left Queenstown and Ireland in early 1919 and left little lasting effect. Many of the buildings were temporary timber structures, and most of these were removed. There are a few indicators to be seen today: the flying-boat bases at Whiddy Island in Bantry Bay and Aghada in Cork Harbour have left concrete aprons and slipways, and at Aghada there are two small concrete gateless gateposts, with ‘US Naval’ engraved on one and ‘Air Station’ on the other.

The pier in Whitepoint is a lasting reminder of the American presence in Cobh. Everything else was dismantled and shipped back to the States. Since then, the pier has been used by generations of Cobh families for swimming at this beautiful and sheltered beach area close to the town. It has deteriorated over the last half century and requires immediate attention before it disappears completely.

The American Pier Cobh Association has been set up to try to save the pier. The group is made up of residents of Whitepoint in association with Cobh Tidy Towns and other community groups and they want to return it to its former glory. They have commissioned a report by a group of consultants and are now looking for funding to repair the structure. Further information can be found at http://americanpiercobh.com/

The Internet is a wonderful tool when it’s used for legitimate purposes but unfortunately, criminals can also manipulate it for their own ends. We saw that with the hacking of the HSE computer system during Covid. The interference with hospital patient’s records caused delays with essential treatments for many patients which was cold hearted and dangerous.

Placing a ransom demand ahead of patient’s wellbeing proved that greed and criminality are alive and well in cyber space, but we already knew that which is why we need to be extra vigilant with our online activity in the run up to Christmas. Opportunists will be out in force. Most of us have experienced some form computer fraud, hacking or cloning at this stage and it can be costly.

I suffered at the hands of these pests and my laptop computer went into the bin as a result. I learned my lesson and since then I wouldn’t dream of being without anti-virus protection. I back up everything on a remote hard drive too and a few short years ago I wouldn’t have even known what these were, but you learn the hard way.

Online dangers come in many forms and need to be taken seriously especially when it comes to our children. Nobody wants our young people to be exposed to harm while using their phones and computers but there is plenty to be nervous about.

A recent report in the Irish Examiner highlighted a new scourge of cyberflashing, the sending of unsolicited nude images to someone else’s device without consent. It is a form of image-based sexual harassment, steeped in the dark and murky power games of all forms of sexual abuse.

Academics in Dublin City University have just completed a study with 15-17 years olds on their experiences of sexual and gender-based abuse and harassment during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the focus groups, the girls reported that receiving unwanted ‘dick pics’ had become so normalised that they were almost de-sensitised to it.

17.4% of boys and 33.3% of girls had received unwanted sexual photos or videos online and the frequency of this had increased since the start of the pandemic. According to a 2018 British survey, 41% of women between 18-24 years old had experienced cyberflashing.

Deviants were around in my day as well long before computerisation. They often turned out to be the people we trusted, and it wasn’t only the bad apples in the clergy we had to worry about.

A popular TV show at the time was Top of the Pops, presented by Jimmy Saville. A huge young audience watched every week to see who was at number one in the charts. Saville went on to host another programme for kids called ‘Jim’ll Fix It’. He was so popular that he was knighted by the Queen but in reality, he was one of the UK’s most notorious paedophiles.

Gary Glitter was a performer who appeared regularly on that show and was one of the biggest artists at the time. A bit over the top with the glamour and the big platform shoes, but he had a massive following. He started performing in the 60’s as Paul Raven but later changed his name to Gary Glitter and sold over 20 million records. Little did we know he was a prolific paedophile.

Rolf Harris was another guy who was doing well at the time. He also had his own show which was a mixture of music and art. He was the uncle you wished you had but he went to prison for indecent assault, so he wasn’t the ideal uncle after all.

I Spy was an American TV series about two secret agents, starring Robert Culp and Bill Cosby. It ran from 1965 to 1968 and was very popular. Culp posed as a tennis player and Cosby was his trainer. Cosby later went on to star in The Cosby Show, playing the part of Cliff Huxtable and gained the reputation as ‘America’s Dad’, a reputation that has been tainted since with numerous claims of sexual assault made against him.

Many of those we looked up to as kids found ways to groom children long before the existence of the Internet. Modern technology has provided predators with a much greater ability to interact with children and new opportunities for paedophiles and those inhabiting the dark web.

On the positive side, there is a growing awareness of the dangers posed to our children and grandchildren. We are more educated about Internet safety and the evil that exists in cyberspace, which is great, but for many of us of a certain vintage, it’s not easy keeping up and I, for one, am very aware of how little I know.

Back in my working days, Avril Ronan of Trend Micro organised an Internet safety awareness day for community policing members in Cork and what I discovered that day was frightening. They provide online technology security, and they did an experiment with us to demonstrate the amount of information they could learn about us from a tiny piece of data. It was scary.

The Internet presents an unrivalled opportunity for sexual exploitation, abuse, bullying, and other forms of nefarious activity and we also need to recognise that our young people are vulnerable to its dangers. An Garda Siochana have some useful online safety advice.

They say the anonymous nature of the Internet makes it easy for people to pretend to be something they are not, so we should always be careful about the kind of information we give out. Where children are concerned, they should be encouraged to report instances where they feel something is suspicious or not quite right and to tell an adult or someone they trust.

It’s important to remember that people aren’t always what they seem online.