Irish Times, 'Prison Population in 1983 was a third of today's'

27th December 2013

Stephen Collins writes about a Department of Justice memo from 1983 on prison population, released this month under the '30-year rule'. The memo shows that the prison population was about 1,350 people in 1983. The memo reveals the concern of civil servants at multiple cell occupancy and a lack of in-cell sanitation, issues that still occur in the Irish prison system today.

The memo also demonstrates concern at continued expansion in the use of imprisonment (which has subsequently come to pass!). The article highlights figures from October 15th 2013 which show that the current prison population is about 4,111. Therefore there has been more than a trebling in numbers in thirty years.

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Irish Times, 'Prison Population in 1983 was a third of today's'