And I suppose the minister for justice was told that they ship off garda killers to Loughlin house in Cavan , so that they can wall out the gates ! A bloody disgrace . Should be resignations over that !

Wheatfield prison( the largest prison pop in the country), cloverhill and midlands all v modern with in cell sanitation – open prisons the same. Believe me, they get looked after well enough.

i think they find life a lot easier on the inside … no worries plenty of food and warmth … and no bills

Bring in chain gangs or at least some sort of hard labour for prisoners. If you can’t do the time don’t do the crime. Making prisons more comfortable unfortunately won’t stop crimson

there should be two kinds of prisons… prison no 1 for the ordinary decent person that breaks the law and then the prison 2 for the animals and scum … those murders and gang members… the prison authority should keep packing them in and they will kill them selves and each other and make space for more psychos to be locked up…

The primary function of any prison system has to be the reduction of crime. Countries with progressive prison systems where prisoners are treated humanely (e.g. given their own cells with proper sanitation) have less crimes than countries with tough regimes.

Open prisons are far cheaper to run so if prisoners are deemed low risk, this is where they should be held. There is no point is putting someone in an expensive to run maximum security type establishment if they are a low flight risk.

If you dehumanize people as a form of punishment, don’t be surprised if they start acting in a less than human way.

Introduce Thai prisons, that’s what I say. A few Bangkok Hilton’s is what we need, something to actually be afraid of.

I believe in crime and punishment not crime and holiday. Our jails should be hell for violent offenders and sex beasts. Currently they can use drugs, play pool, watch tv, go to the gym, have their meals handed to them and fratinise with other criminals. And we pay to keep them in this nice existence. Serious crime deserves serious punishment,Lesser crimes , lesser punishment and it should not solely be constricted to the amount of time served but to the conditions in which it is served. I strongly believe our hell are not even close to being the hell that they should be. Criminals should be afraid of them.

I say a prison for petty criminals and the f**king death penalty for all these so called gang members , rapists , pedo’s drug lords etc only a waste of tax payers hard earned money !!! As for the garda killer !!! What a joke imagine what the rest of the scum out there wil think after hearing were that scum back was put for killing an innocent garda on duty !!! I am afraid for them now she on our justice system !! Looks like crime pays in this country !! If that was America he would have been shot !! Never mind prison

This is ridiculous…every asshole in those prisons checked themselves in, they had a choice! Human rights my arse..the second they stole, assaulted, raped or killed they gave up their right to freedom. I have no sympathy whatsoever…any cash they have allocated for this should be put towards our schools, hospitals or helping children with special needs.

Yeah right well being of some scumbags should be top priority in Ireland now and point of hot debate… Yeah government leave your priory hall people in sh**e and spend couple millions instead, so scumbags have their cells revamped and better cook on the duty. Yep that’s the way to go.

This country is gone to PC. Sorry but if you commit a crime you deserved to be locked up in a sh1t hole of a jail, not a hotel. They should hate every second of it and not have home comforts and never want to come back. Not a cent should be wasted in doing up a prison instead use the money to build a children’s hospital or scrap some of these stealth taxes that are crippling people and use that money to fill the hole.

Bring in Thai style prisons.

It’s amazing to think the first drug free unit is only opening now in mountjoy prison, we lag well behind western europe. Of the 4400 people locked up yes there is people who should be locked up for the rest of their lives but in a lot of cases prison sentences do nothing but further marginalise people and allows addicts and convicts to become further entrenhced in a cycle of crime and prison. As was said above punitive prison sentences dont work, they only increase recidivism rates. People on this thread advocating the use of chain gang labor and the closure of open prisons are typical of people who sit at home in their ivory towers who don’t really have knowledge of what it is really like out there… Lets introduce harsher penalties because well it’s really working in the U.S

It’s a proven fact that longer prison sentences don’t work. Prison sentences that focus only on the punitive do nothing only increase the recidivism rates. When will people start realising that restorative measures, sentences with meaningful rehabilitative and educational elements to them will actually creat a safer society. And before classed as a “hug-a-thug, check out the Canada/Baltic countries success stories

This knowledge should strengthen relations between Ireland and Iran.

No prison should be ‘an open prison’ !!!! That’s what some of us have here! Explain? Homes worth half of what they were 3 years ago. Losing jobs through no fault of our own! Not being able to pay ordinary/necessary bills each month, telling your son/daughter, sorry the bit of money I had saved for in the hope that you were going to do 3rd Level education, has been spent on the morg. for the past couple of years!

My opinion? Build a couple of new up to date prisons, what I mean by that is, 1 per cell + 1 toilet and sink. No TV, maybe a radio. Trips to quarrys each day leaving at 7am in chains for 8 hours breaking rocks, manually, with a hammer. This hopefully will give them time to think about what they’ve done, wrongly, to other human beings that live an honest life and that unfortunately, were in the wrong place at the wrong time when they were beaten, stabbed, kick to death, shot to pieces sitting in a garda car, securing a security/money van with cash.

The woman that was going home from work, late at night, that is raped and beaten and left for dead, the child that thinks as an adult that “it was my fault” when a paeodphile rapes them consistently when they were an innocent young child. etc. etc. etc.

Other types of prisoners …. I have plans for them also. The human being that is just trying to cope each day to put food on the table and live a respectful life, that cannot pay their morg., ESB bill etc. should never be jailed! The person that was paying onion tax instead of garlic tax should not get 6 years in jail sleeping in the same cell as a paeodphile, raping his daughter for years and getting away with it!

Prisoners social welfare doesn’t automatically stop when they enter prison, they can go in for a period of time and have there family collect their dole, fantastic country isn’t it, we pay on the double it’s a bleedin joke

As for Iran critising our prison conditions. lol. check out this account of torture in an Iranian prison. http://www.iran-e-sabz.org/news/torture.htm

To the person that wants Thai style prisons, people have to work in these places and have a right not to be subjected to those kind of conditions