Irish Prison Service Annual Report 2022

18th October 2023

The Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has published the Irish Prison Service Annual Report 2022. The report features statistics relating to the profile of the prison population in Ireland.

Below is an outline of some of the key figures contained in the report.

For IPRT's full response to the publication, see our press release here.

Some key figures from the report:

• 5,801 persons were sent to prison in 2022 compared with 5,179 in 2021, an increase of 12.0% (+622). Of those persons committed, 89.1% were male and 10.9% were female (9.4% women in 2021).
• In 2022 there was an overall increase in prison population including those on short sentences of 12 months or less. In 2022 74% of sentence committals were for a sentence of 12 months or less (this is the number of committals not the number of people).
• In 2022 38% of the overall committals to prison were on remand or pre-trial detention (43% in 2021) – we would question this high use of pre-trial detention. At the end of 2022, the proportion of remand trial prisoners in custody for one year or more was 12% compared with 6% at the start of 2020. This indicates a large number of cases that have to come before the courts
• The overall daily average number of prisoners in custody in 2022 was 4,122 compared to 3,792 in 2021, an increase of 8.7% (+330). The daily average number of female offenders in custody was 173, a 20.1% (+29) increase on the 2021 average of 144.
• The Irish Prison Service has continued its engagement with the Department of Justice Criminal Policy Division and the Office of Parliamentary Counsel to progress a new Statutory Instrument (SI) required to implement recommended enhancements to the Prisoner Complaints System. The new S.I. is expected in 2023, at which point the Irish Prison Service will review and update prisoner complaint policies, procedures, staff training, and ICT systems to deliver improvements to the management of prisoner complaints.

The Irish Prison Service Annual Report 2022 is available here.

See more: 

• IPRT: Alarming rise in imprisonment rates and use of short sentences in latest reports - IPRT
• Irish Examiner: Almost 10% of people sent to prison last year were homeless, new figures show
• Law Society Gazette: IPRT highlights rise in number of women prisoners
• Published on the Irish Prison Service website here. (Link at the end of the article)