Johnnie Wall believes many sentences being handed down in our justice system are too lenient…
I WROTE an ‘eloquent’ piece for The Kerryman back in the early nineties. It was for a column titled ‘Your Personal Opinion’. However, in hindsight it was more of a rant, an outpouring of pent-up frustration at the way I perceived the situation.
I was trying to put across the injustice of the leniency of sentences for people who consistently break the law.
I then wrote:
“In the strict regime of the 40’s and 50’s you could get a prison sentence for not having a light on your bicycle, education was not a priority, boys and girls left school at the tender ages of eleven and twelve years old went to work or took up apprenticeships.
The Catholic church ruled and the priest’s word was unchallenged.
The law of the land was subordinate to the excesses of a male clergy dominated system. Unmarried mothers were outcasts of society, unclean and unforgiven, and this attitude was propagated and determined by people who represented a religion whose basic premise was to ‘love God and love your neighbour’. Basic forgiveness was not a priority.
The law of the land was in essence subordinated to the dictates of the church.
I believe the harsh intolerance of the 40’s and 50’s led to the liberal attitudes of the sixties.
Is it any wonder then that the young men and women of that era rebelled against the prevailing attitudes of the previous generations, abandoning moral standards and rejecting any form of authority.
The age of sex drugs and rock and roll had arrived, work was plentiful, and free sex the anthem.
Naturally, most of that passed me by and I never rebelled or did any of that free sex stuff.
High moral standards no longer existed, and we became too tolerant of people, who committed crime.
A person who is now found guilty of the foulest crime of all, murder, can expect to be out of a prison (that could be compared to a grade b hotel) in just over five years.
A judge once put a price on the heinous crime of rape – he told the person charged to pay €500 to the woman so she could have a good holiday.”
That was 22 years ago.
What has changed in those intervening 22 years??
I can tell you that the criminal’s life has improved substantially. Take the case of Eamon Lillis.
He was convicted of killing his wife Celine in December 2008. He beat her four times over the head with a brick at their home in Howth.
Lillis was charged with murder but a jury found him guilty of manslaughter.
He was sentenced to a jail term of six years and 11 months in 2010 for the manslaughter of his wife, Celine Cawley (46), at their home in Windgate Road, Howth in north Dublin in December 2008.
He is currently being transferred to an open prison to serve the rest of his sentence. The transfer is seen as the first step in preparing the 56-year-old for his expected release in April next year.
In another case a judge found that a woman was partially to blame for her rape and the perpetrator got off scot-free.
A 2008 opinion poll (taken in the USA) on people’s attitudes to sex crimes showed 37 per cent of respondents believed a woman bore some responsibility for her rape if she flirted extensively with a man and 38 per cent believed a woman must share some of the blame for her rape if she walked through a deserted area.
Every week you read about a person with umpteen convictions been given a suspended sentence or a small fine.
I could go on and on but I’ll refrain.
Is it time to go back to the legal standards and moral attitudes to crime of the 40’s and 50’s without the intrusion or imperious dictates of a fanatical clergy?
