That's certainly a valid point, Eliza. I think though, that there is no right or wrong answer here - it's strictly a matter of widely differing opinions. It's up to those with responsibility to achieve a balance that does its best to satisfy differing interests.

I certainly sympathize with the victims, but I just can't see how it does any good to prosecute a 90-yr-old for crimes he committed when he was twenty. And I think that sometimes, those who scream loudest demanding retribution, are the ones who have the least interest in the victim. Retribution does little to heal an injury. I think there is good reason to explore the principles of restorative justice, which explore the possibility of requiring the offender to work to make the victim whole again.

And to my mind, a twenty-year-old does not have the maturity of judgment that one has at thirty, and that should be a mitigating factor.

Q asks how these references to the Holocaust are relevant. Although the Tuam home closed in 1961, the worst abuses too place in the 1930s and 1940s, about the same time as the crimes of the Holocaust.

I will continue to think that 50-year-old crimes are a matter for sociologists and historians, not for prosecutors. It's too late for any effective or reasonable punishment, but there are still many lessons to be learned from such crimes that have a wide effect. I think a fifty-year statute of limitations is reasonable for any crime, no matter how serious - and even that is too long to allow for a truly fair trial.

-Joe Offer-