The Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) is to conduct a 12-month "root and branch review" of the Irish criminal justice system which it hopes "will sound the death knell for the politics of zero tolerance".
The review will be carried out by Dr Barry Vaughan who has lectured in criminology at a number of universities and at the Garda Training College. Dr Vaughan has been asked by the trust to prepare a critique of the Irish penal system in consultation with State bodies, non-governmental organisations and international experts. He will "analyse and describe appropriate models of best practice" and produce recommendations for an alternative prison system. Launching the review, trust patron Dr T. K. Whitaker said prison was still far from being "a penalty of last resort".
While there had been many improvements since he chaired an inquiry into the penal system in 1985, roughly half of committals to prison were still for sentences of six months or less. "People are still being jailed for non-payment of fines and for minor offences against the person or property like stealing a coat", he said. "There would be less overcrowding and less need for very expensive additional prison places if more use were made of alternatives to imprisonment, such as community service". Attachment of income and assets could also "be extended as a sanction", he said.
In the "environment of greater extremes" which had been created by our economic success there was a need for "a clearer understanding of the prevailing social and other causes of crime and of how to deal most effectively with criminal gangs", Dr Whitaker said.
Reform would require expert guidance on how to counter drug abuse and divert young people from crime. It would also look at ways State agencies could treat young offenders with drug problems other than by imprisonment.
Further research was required on how to prepare prisoners for integration into society when they were released.
He said the trust's review was "timely and commendable" and hoped that the remedies proposed would "cost no more than our enhanced national means could tolerate".
Ms Maggie Donnelly, the chairwoman of the IPRT subgroup overseeing the review, said the State's prisons were grossly overcrowded and sanitation facilities were "Dickensian". The standard of drug treatment and psychiatric facilities were also unacceptable, she said.
Speaking after the launch, the Fine Gael spokesman on justice, Mr Jim Higgins, welcomed the review and said the IPRT had succeeded in changing the public's perception of prisons.
"There is now a public receptiveness to the idea that viable alternatives to prison are the way to go rather than continuing with the incarceration binge that the current Minister is absolutely devoted to. The prison system is not working. It neither rehabilitates nor deters."
Roddy O'Sullivan is contactable at roddyosullivan@ireland.com
