A new prisoner rehabilitation project underway at Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, claims its participants are 10 times less likely to re-offend after they are released.
Organisers of the Connect project say statistics compiled at the end of a three-year pilot phase show a recidivism rate or a propensity to re-offend of just 5 per cent.
This compares with a recidivism rate of 70 per cent for the Republic’s prison population as a whole.
The project has been so successful that the Government has committed £46 million to extending it to each of the country’s 17 jails over the next five years.
It is already being established in Cork, Limerick, Castlerea, St Patrick’s and Wheatfield prisons.
The project is being run by the National Training and Development Institute, part of the Rehab group, and the Department of Justice.
Altogether 367 male and female prisoners in Mountjoy haveparticipated in the project. These include inmates serving sentences for crimes varying from theft and armed robbery to murder.
Project manager, Ms Paula Lawlor, said: "There was no discriminationin who could take part, regardless of crime or sentence."
"In fact, the majority of participants have been habitual offenders, some with more 14 convictions."
