MEASURES TO HALT RISE IN JAIL NUMBERS URGED IN REPORT

Measures to halt the steep rise in Ireland's prison population are
recommended in a Government report to be published today.

They include powers for judges to "sentence" offenders to receive
counselling, to make reparation to their victims, or to get treatment.

Judges could order people on bail to stay in "bail hostels" on the grounds
of open prisons. But they could not imprison offenders under 21 without
first getting a report from the Probation and Welfare Service.

The recommendations are in the final report of the expert group on the
Probation and Welfare Service, published today by the Minister for Justice,
Equality and Law Reform, Mr O'Donoghue.

They were welcomed last night by the probation and welfare officers' branch
of IMPACT, which said it will press for early implementation of the
recommendations.

Despite a falling crime rate, Ireland's prison population has been growing
rapidly, the report says, from 8,779 in 1989 to 11,307 in 1997 and an
expected 13,000 in 2002.

But the average prisoner serves only 2.5 months because a high proportion of
those jailed are sentenced to periods of fewer than three months.

By international standards Ireland has a very high proportion of under
21-year-olds in its jails. At the heart of a changed system, as recommended
in the report, would be a probation and welfare agency, separate from the
Department of Justice, with its own board of directors and its own budget.

The agency would have two main sections, one to deal with criminal cases and
one with family law. The report recommends that the practice of seconding
probation and welfare officers to provide social work services to the
Adoption Board should end.

IMPACT said last night that the establishment of the agency as a separate
body would enable it to fight for more funding for community-based
alternatives to prison.

The report argues that programmes of rehabilitation can be effective in
changing the behaviour of offenders, so long as they are used with the right
offenders in the right way.

It also recommends that the sex offender treatment programme in Arbour Hill
Prison "be replicated in every penal institution which has sex offenders,
developed, staffed and funded appropriately."

New non-custodial sanctions which judges could impose would include
treatment orders, mediation orders (for mediation of disputes between an
offender and someone else), reparation orders and counselling orders.

The administration of justice for people charged with serious offences is
being delayed by the number of road traffic offences handled by the courts,
it says, and the group urges that some other way be found to deal with these.

People on probation can currently be instructed to reside in "probation
hostels" and the report says more of them should be set up. "Consideration
should also be given to establishing bail hostels, with the possibility of
utilising some of the existing land or buildings in the current open prisons."

This would give judges an additional option to releasing people on bail or
remanding them in custody.

It says electronic tagging of prisoners should not be introduced until more
sophisticated monitoring systems have become available and until more
experience of electronic tagging is gained in other countries.

The expert group was chaired by Mr Brian McCarthy, chairman of the
Kerry-based financial services company, Fexco. It was made up of
representatives of the judiciary, ICTU, Probation and Welfare Service, and
Government departments.

The Minister said last night he would give the report very careful
consideration and would bring proposals on foot of it before the Government
for decision.