On 18 October 2023, the All-Party Oireachtas Group on Penal Reform (the APOGPR) met in Leinster House to mark the ten-year anniversary of the publication of the Report on Penal Reform of 2013 by the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality.
The report, achieved cross-party consensus, setting out five main recommendations in support of systemic penal reform, as follows:
The Government should commit to reducing the prison population by a third (over a ten-year period);
All prison sentences for non-violent offences under 6 months should be commuted and replaced with community service orders;
Standard remission should be increased from one-quarter to one-third (for all sentences, longer than a month);
A single piece of legislation should be introduced to establish a structured release system (to include changes to remission, temporary release, parole, and the community return programme);
Actions should be taken to tackle overcrowding, improve prison conditions and increase the ‘proportion’ of open prisons.
The meeting was co-chaired by two Oireachtas Deputies and supported by the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT). It invited legislators to reflect on the implementation of the report’s recommendations as well as areas of progress or regress in the penal landscape over the past decade.
Criminologists and internationally renowned experts on penal reform, Professor Mary Rogan (TCD) and Professor Ian O’Donnell (UCD), presented at the meeting.1 They highlighted some positive developments that have occurred since the report was first published, while suggesting how legislators might close the gap between worthwhile proposals and enacting meaningful change.
Professor O’Donnell welcomed the considerable decline in the number of people jailed for non-payment of court-ordered fines due to the introduction of the Fines Act 2014 – with 234 people committed to prison for this reason in 20202 compared to a peak of almost 10,000 in 20153. He also noted the welcome closure of St Patrick’s Institution in 2017.
However, he regretted the failure to capitalise on a general trend of a decreasing prison population between 2013 and 2021 meaning the report’s target was missed with the prison population higher now than it was in 2013. The average prison population in 2021 of 3,7924 has increased by 20 per cent, with almost 4,500 in custody in recent times.5
On substituting community service for terms of imprisonment of less than six months for non-violent offences, Professor O’Donnell suggested a change in language is needed “to think about community sanctions as the default approach with imprisonment as the occasional ‘alternative’”. With one in four committals under sentence in 2021 being for terms of less than three months, this “deeply engrained part of Ireland’s sentencing culture” remains unaddressed. This is despite awareness that these “brief bursts of custody are too short to allow meaningful intervention in terms of addressing substance misuse, educational disadvantage” and “cause significant disruption as regards employment, access to housing and childcare”.
Professor Rogan reflected on how the 2013 Report was published during “a time of optimism in penal policy”, and that it had “signalled a change of direction, a change for the better, and a desire to grasp the perennial problems in our penal system”. Professor Rogan also observed that the ‘Penal Policy Review Group’ reported shortly afterwards in 2014, consisting of representatives from across the penal landscape, with (43) similar recommendations calling for a reformed approach to penal policy to better serve the Irish people.
Professor Rogan noted that underlying all the recommendations is a concern for how penal policy is made; with a focus on using evidence and building consensus, thus creating a common approach “which tries to view penal policy a bit like public health policy – something which is about getting the best outcomes, rather than scoring points”. In countries taking this approach, she noted the result tended to be “a reluctance to increase prison numbers and an emphasis on community-based sanctioning”.
Additionally, the 2014 Penal Policy Review Group recommended the establishment of a Penal Consultative Council. Professor Rogan understood that this proposed Penal Consultative Council would be made up of a mixture of people with expertise in penal policy, senior officials, representatives from civil society, academia, etc., and that Government could go to this body for advice and reflection on how to proceed with aspects of penal policy – the final decision would remain with Government but be supported by “a more deliberative process”. While this important recommendation was echoed in the Department of Justice’s ‘Review of Policy Options for Prison and Penal Reform 2022-2024’, it has not yet come to pass but the Council should be established as a priority.
Professor Rogan concluded by suggesting that the APOGPR “keep the spotlight firmly on … the implementation of OPCAT”, noting that of the EU and the UK, Ireland remains one of two countries that has yet to ratify OPCAT. Professor Rogan also outlined some of her concerns with the General Scheme of the Inspection of Places of Detention Bill (2022).
Progress on the other recommendations in the 2013 report have been mixed. The Department of Justice is currently undertaking a review of sentence remission, the results of which are eagerly awaited. The Parole Board was established on a statutory basis in 2019, which is a welcome development to those who are sentenced to life imprisonment. While there had been improvements in prison conditions, we are again seeing regression made all the more difficult with the pressures caused by significant overcrowding.6
Professor Rogan highlighted that the challenges we encountered 10 years ago - “increasing numbers, overcrowding, and the effects on conditions” are unfortunately “back, and they are no less urgent than they were 10 years ago”.
The work of the APOGPR in highlighting the need for building cross-party consensus and supporting evidence-based legislative and policy responses is more pressing than ever.