Irish Examiner: Mounting pressures cramming already full Irish prisons

17th January 2024

On 17 January 2024, Cormac O'Keeffe of the Irish Examiner reported on the monthly figures of people in prison released by the Irish Prison Service (IPS) and compared them to previous statistics.

Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) responds to the numbers and calls for action to deliver existing commitments.

"IPRT flagged “grave concerns” over rising numbers in prisons almost a year ago.

Executive director Saoirse Brady said: “The continued over-reliance on imprisonment in the courts means that the increase in the number of people in prison was predictable and it will continue to get worse.”

She said community-based sanctions should be the “default option” for less serious offending, especially given that three out of four committals were for a sentence of 12 months or less.

"Until meaningful measures are taken to stem the flow of people being sent to prison, we will continue to see overcrowding given the number of new offences coming onstream and increased court sittings."

She said the IPS annual report 2022 showed that the daily average number of women in custody across the two female prisons was already up 20% on the 2021 average.

“Just months later these new spaces at Limerick are now full and the prison is overcapacity,” Ms Brady said.

She said there was a “worryingly” high number of people on remand.

Ms Brady said they are “particularly concerned” about the renewed focus on prison expansion, saying it “goes against established government policy”.

She said the Government should concentrate on its own Review of Policy Options for Prisons and Penal Reform 2022-2024, published in August 2022, so community sanctions become the default option."

Read the full article on the Irish Examiner website.