"Young Country Girls in Trouble"

By Paul Melia
Irish Independent
February 6, 2013

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/young-country-girls-in-trouble-3377883.html

THE authorities were warned over 70 years ago that the Magdalene Laundries were not appropriate places to rehabilitate women convicted of crimes.

A report found that the laundries, which were offered as an alternative to prison, had a "lack of any specialist training" to provide girls with a "fresh start" in life and that education was "absent".

Written by a probation officer in 1941, the report referred to "young country girls who get into trouble in Dublin, where their inexperience is easily recognised and readily exploited by the depraved".