ALTERNATIVES TO PRISON COULD MAKE BETTER SYSTEM

A new report which wants more treatment programmes and fewer people
going to jail is examined by Padraig O'Morain, Social Affairs
Correspondent

A social worker is walking down the street and sees a man lying on the
footpath, moaning. His empty wallet has been dumped on the ground a
few feet away. He has what will be, by tomorrow, two black eyes. A
couple of teeth have been knocked out. He is bleeding, and mumbling
incoherently.

The social worker shakes her head in dismay.

"My God," she says, appalled. "Whoever did this really needs my
help."

The sort of person to whom that kind of story most appeals will not be
terribly impressed by this week's official report on the probation and
welfare service, with its talk of sending offenders for counselling or
treatment instead of to jail.

Already we have heard the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law
Reform, Mr O'Donoghue, emphasise his determination to press ahead with
the provision of more jail places despite the report's concern about
the rise in the number of prisoners.

Perhaps Mr O'Donoghue was simply making necessary noises - ministers
for justice are expected to be seen to be tough on crime and promising
more jail places is one way of being seen to have the required toughness.

On publishing the report, the Minister pointed out that he had got
sanction for an extra 39 posts in the probation and welfare service.

That the report was welcomed by the Opposition parties suggests there
is a reasonable degree of consensus on its approach and that its
authors can hope to influence the future of the criminal justice
system in a significant way.

The most striking finding in the report concerns the brevity of the
average prison sentence, which works out at 2.5 months served. This
happens because 40 per cent of convicted offenders are given sentences
of under three months.

The report points out that these short sentences limit the ability of
the prison service and the probation service to work with prisoners in
any meaningful way.

The statistics in the report also suggest that Irish judges are rather
trigger-happy when it comes to sending people to prison, compared with
those in some other states.

For example, in 1996 only 6 per cent of those sentenced before the
district courts were fined, a remarkably small proportion. In the
equivalent courts in England and Wales, 36 per cent were fined. The
disparity is striking.

And it's not as if prison works terribly well: about 60 per cent of
those committed to adult prisons have previously served a sentence. Of
those committed to St Patrick's Institution for Young Offenders, about
43 per cent have previously served a sentence.

The report also calls into question the very high proportion of
prisoners under the age of 21. A quarter of prisoners in Ireland in
1996 were under 21. This compares with 19 per cent in Scotland, which
had the next highest figures, and 4 per cent in Sweden and Finland,
which have the lowest.

The expert group, chaired by Kerry-based businessman Mr Brian
McCarthy, believes this approach needs to change and that what is
needed is "a significant shift in policy to facilitate the increased
use of a much greater range of non-custodial sanctions".

Moreover, it claims strong public support for this approach. Referring
to the submissions made to the National Crime Forum, which held public
meetings in a number of locations, it quotes this from its report: "If
there was one point on which there was virtual unanimity, it was that
imprisonment is not a successful strategy for reducing crime."

The group also maintains that rehabilitation programmes, if used with
the right offenders in the right way, are effective in turning people
away from crime. It bases this on research elsewhere and pleads for
similar research to be conducted in this State. The thrust of the
report, therefore, is to keep young people out of jail and, where
possible, to replace imprisonment with other sanctions.

These other sanctions could include counselling, compensation,
treatment, mediation or combinations of these sanctions. They would be
implemented by a probation and welfare agency independent of the
Department, a recommendation which has been strongly endorsed by the
probation and welfare office branch of IMPACT.

As regards sex abuse the report wants the treatment programme in
Arbour Hill Prison extended to all other prisons which contain sex
offenders - an obvious enough request, but a lot of water has flowed
under a lot of bridges since that demand first began to be made.

They also recommend that nobody under 21 years of age, or convicted of
a first offence, should be imprisoned without the court having first
obtained a probation report.

This would all be terribly galling if you had suffered, say, your
third burglary in 18 months and you had to stand by and see the
burglar being "mollycoddled" by the court. But if sanctions such as
counselling were accompanied by reparation (which would involve some
form of compensation), then you might end up feeling better served
than by a "revolving door" prison sentence.

The report accepts there are people for whom non-custodial sanctions
are unsuitable - the violent attacker in the story at the start of
this article is an example - but it proposes that we find effective
and sensible ways to halt the rapid rise in our prison population
(11,307 committals in 1997, an estimated 13,000 in 2002).

If the criminal justice system can show that these approaches work at
least as well as prison and if it can vindicate the needs and the
grievances of victims, then it makes excellent sense to implement the
recommendations of this report.

The average prison term works out at 2.5 months because 40 per cent of
offenders are given sentences of under three months.