Some "discharged" people need some sort of protected place in which to live after leaving prison
06 January 2006
Regarding New Year resolutions - firstly, no matter how encouraging the vendeuse may be, I will not agree to try on any cute little outfits which I know perfectly well will not fit me. Doing so only makes steam come out of my ears which is as bad for my recent hair-do as dragging the too-small clothes over my head.
Secondly, I will exert myself regarding the lack of hostels and support for those who have recently been released from prison. A visit to the Dochâs Centre for women at Mountjoy this Christmas rekindled my concern about these issues.
The sixth annual Christmas dinner and Nativity play was a very important event in the year at the Mountjoy Complex. All the women prisoners are asked and, as far as I can see, came. The staff were there, people who are associated with the prison, a few hangers on like me and relatives of some of the prisoners. Last year President McAleese came and I'm sure enjoyed it as much as I did this year.
We sat at round tables for ten, about sixteen or more tables, everyone mingling. The menu was prawns in Marie Rose sauce on salad leaves, salmon in Teriyaki sauce or roast beef and there was a vegetarian option which I had. The chef had been given the recipe by the owner of the Paradiso Restaurant in Cork - Savoy cabbage leaves stuffed with a mixture of goat's cheese and different nuts. There were delicious vegetables and then Christmas pudding with cream followed by tea or coffee.
Before lunch Sister Mary, the Chaplin, said grace but preceded it by asking us to pray for seven women who had been, as she put it, "part of the Dochâs community" in the recent past and had died during the past year. Later, a prison officer told me none were more than thirty and several had children. If we did not know much about the curse of heroin it certainly sank in then. Tears were shed by some and I think they were for more than the dead.
Perhaps to emphasise some people do manage to kick this terrible habit, Governor John Lonergan had particular compliments to Julie O'Toole, part of the Dochâs Community over thirteen years ago who has written a book called Heroin about her experiences on the drug and how she got off it. Personally, I think she should have called the book "heroine" because that is what she is. Her book is available in most bookshops and makes good reading.
After lunch we had the Nativity play. The Blessed Virgin was very practical and spirited about the arrival of the Baby Jesus but why wouldn't she be when one remembers the words of the Magnificat? The donkey had reindeer antlers, a minor innovation and we had angels, shepherds, wise men of diverse nationalities.
The narrator had a beautiful speaking voice and read the story movingly. Carols were sung by a prison officer with a lovely voice and three potential Leontyne Prices, who came respectively from South Africa, Nigeria and Tanzania.
One of these three girls had been in court that morning and was acquitted of what ever crime she was accused. Despite the fact that she could have gone off after the case, her commitment to the carol singing was such that she insisted on coming back to Mountjoy and when I was leaving I saw here going with some other girls back to one of the houses where they live. I wonder if she had left the court on acquittal had she anywhere to live?
The potential Leontyne Price is not the only one with a housing problem. The woman who sat beside me at lunch I have seen going in and out of Mountjoy for over a decade. She is a vulnerable, now middle-aged person and needs some sort of protected place in which to live. But such habitations are few and far between, frequently because the residents of an area object to anything such as sheltered housing for those leaving psychiatric hospitals or prison in their area.
Surely this is un-Christian, un-Muslim, un-Hindu, un-humanist and un anything to do with trying to help less fortunate people in this world? So I would be grateful if people who make objections to planning permission for such hostels or houses would make a New Year resolution not to be so mean-spirited.
Now judges do not lightly send women to prison (nor men I would hasten to add) and I'm sure some of these young women and girls are a great nuisance stealing hand bags, shop lifting and so forth but the demon drugs drive people to behave very badly. And if they have little family back up, the likelihood of re-offending when they go back out to the same milieu is very high. It is terrible to be told by someone who looked little more than a child that selling her body for two hours was the only way to get the price of a night in a hostel or she'd have to sleep in an abandoned car.
The Dochâs Centre must represent one of the few stable places in these girls' lives. My admiration for the staff is boundless and their GP, who I will just call Therese (because that is her name) and Sister Mary the chaplain are obviously rocks of comfort to the detainees. The girls gave a special present to a male chief officer who was going to another prison. I wonder was he one of the few father figures many of them had had?
We are all affected by our surroundings and-as one who can remember the former women's prison the transformation in the prisoners' behaviour in the Dochâs Centre is a delight. In the dreadful semi-subterranean old prison women were screaming all the time-the noise was horrific between the screaming and the slamming of the iron doors. In Dochâs most are chatting quite cheerfully, although anxious to get a few days out for Christmas the day I was there. I asked one woman if her son would come to see here if she didn't get out. "I won't let him come and visit me here," she said, her eyes full of tears. She cheered up when I said I'd worked in the Rotunda and he had been born there she said. We spent a good five minutes praising that worthy institution.
So many people in the Mountjoy complex have strong associations with the Rotunda (once a group of male prisoners did step aerobics in aid of the Friends of the Rotunda and raised quite a bit of money) the Mater and Temple Street. It would be very nice if we could get a few more hostels going for what I keep calling "discharged" people. It could be a big help in dealing with those whose lives are really chaotic. And remember it costs well over a thousand euros a week to keep someone in prison. As taxpayers we would all be saving.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
