The latest report from the National Economic and Social Forum, Re-integration of Prisoners, shows that despite the drop in crime over the last few years the Irish imprisonment rate is increasing and is now triple that of England and Wales and quadruple that of the Scandinavian countries.
The Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern, launched the publication this afternoon. The report was prepared on the basis of a wide series of consultations, visits to prisons and community-based projects, local hearings, written submissions from the public and commissioned research.
Dr Valerie Bresnihan, Chairperson of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, warmly congratulated the NESF on their report and in particular the Forum’s call for the establishment of Mental Health Courts which she described as "a serious and constructive challenge to Minsiter O’Donoghue to end the present system of solitary confinement as ‘treatment’ for mentally ill prisoners".
It is submitted as an input to the process of important changes the Government has been making in areas such as the new Prison Service, the Probation and Welfare Service and the Parole Board due to be set up soon.
Its central focus is on the barriers to policy implementation and the related need for more focused, targeted and integrated mechanisms or models to ensure that prisoners can be more effectively integrated back into society.
The findings, which form the background to the report’s recommendations, are:
- The majority of our prisoners are male, young and are from the most deprived backgrounds and lack basic educational and employment skills;
- The running weekly costs alone now amount to almost €1,250 per prisoner, while that for a community service/supervision order comes to only €50/75
- Despite this, and the consensus views of the experts that non-custodial options are more effective than prisons, and the drop in crime over the last few years, our imprisonment rate is increasing and is now triple that of England and Wales and quadruple that of the Scandinavian countries
- Our prisoners have one of the highest re-offending rates in Europe
The report’s recommendations are built around its overall conclusion that what is urgently required are key institutional mechanisms/models to spearhead and ensure effective follow-through on the report’s recommendations. The report recommends:
- A Prison Service Re-integration Group at national level for strategic policy purposes
- An Inter-Agency Group in each Prison to develop and implement integrated approaches
- A Positive Sentence management plan for each prisoner.