Should people with 75 previous convictions ever be let out of prison again.

Equality is a red herring. All a democratic society can offer is equality of opportunity. Unless one wants to go to North Korea, where people are equally miserable. There is always a tradeoff between equality and liberty. The balance is equality of opportunity. Society can do its part here, and Ireland has done a lot. Bad parenting has a lot to answer for though, and we need to ask the hard questions rather than running off blaming 'society' for the problems of individuals.
 
Hear hear. Excellent post.
 
+1 for Orka and Shnaeks posts.

Society is always blamed but it can only be blamed to a certain extent. There should be more emphasis on Individual Responsibility. We've ceded certain liberties for so called equality. We rely on government too much and society suffers because of it.
Why arent parents made do parenting courses? You need a licence for a dog but a child.... (cue can of worms opening)
 
Poverty in Ireland is an economic symptom of a social problem. Throwing money at it treats (masks?) the symptom but it solves nothing without the efforts of parents from a very early age
 


Who is blaming society?

Nobody said it was easy to break the cycle but lets not pretend that all children have the same opportunities in life just because they have access to an education system. They don't choose their parents or the life they are born into.

I have worked hard to earn myself a high salary and a good lifestyle that I feel that I deserve. I am not big headed enough to believe though that without the support and love given to me by my parents, I would be sitting here today. There are thousands of kids who cannot say that.

However, simply blaming the parents is also simplistic. Many of them were born into conditions similar to what their own kids are born into. Its a vicious cycle. I have no idea how we break that cycle but we should at least try instead of simply saying 'it the child is good enough, they will break it themselves'.
 

Big +1
 

Indeed, we need to break this cycle. In fact, you are agreeing with my point in the statement above, in pointing out that the child is not to blame. We need to encourage and ensure good parenting, and discourage bad parenting. How do we do this? One thing is for certain - we've thrown a pile of money at it over the last 10 years, and things haven't gotten any better. We need some hard thinking, perhaps even unpopular thinking. But thinking is something our government don't do very often or very well.
Sure, parenting isn't the only problem. But I would be of the opinion that it is the biggest problem.
I would also be of the opinion that education is key, and would support a transfer of money from the department of social welfare to the department of education if that measure were to be voted on.
 

To be fair to the current Government, todays problems have their roots going back long before they were in power. The creation of ghetto style housing estates like the Ballymun flats, fatima mansions etc, the introduction and booming popularity of illegal drugs into Ireland which destroyed whole areas and generations of families, the lack of research done into the whole area of poverty and social exclusion and the lack of community based initiatives.

I think the current government deserve some credit for attempting to tackle the problem. As someone who grew up not too far from Ballymun and who had friends from the area (of which one is dead and a couple more are drug addicted criminals while a few more are very successful), I can really see the difference in recent years even if huge problems still exist.

By the way, I am not absolving the individuals involved. We all make choices. Some of us are lucky enough and strong enough to be able to make the right ones. The problem is that I can't put my hand on heart and say that if I was born into another family or area, I wouldn't have made the same bad decisons and I am not a bad person. But by the Grace of God and all that........

I should point out that I am talking petty crime and repeat offenders here. Violent and sexual crimes are a completely different story.
 
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