7th August 2010
In Saturday's Irish Examiner, Jennifer Hough highlights that in 2009 there were 15,425 committals to prison, which is a considerable increase from the 2008 total of 13,557.
These figures are from the 2009 Irish Prison Service Annual Report, which was released on Friday afternoon. The article draws attention to some of the staggering increases across the prison population last year. These include the number of people jailed for non-payment of court ordered fines, which has almost doubled from 2,520 in 2008 to 4,806 in 2009. Hough also points out that this figure had already mushroomed by almost 90% between 2007 and 2008.
The IPRT is quoted stating that "these figures also give lie to the myth that the large majority of persons sent to prison are violent offenders"
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