Shatter reveals early release plan

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has unveiled plans for the early release of 1,200 prisoners over the next three years to ease prison overcrowding and begin the reform of the prison system.

Under the plan, prisoners serving between one and eight years will be eligible for a community release scheme half way through their sentence.

Only those deemed not to pose a safety risk to the community will be released. All prisoners will be screened before being approved for the programme.

He is also currently in the process of reviewing the current system where prisoners are automatically entitled to 25 per cent remission, or time off for good behaviour. He believed such an entitlement should be linked to prisoners’ behaviour records in jail.

The prison service has also earmarked the next 40 months as a period in which in-cell sanitation will be rolled out in all prisons, thus ending the practice of slopping out.

Drug free units are also to be introduced in jails, as is an “incentivised regime”. The latter will involve offering prisoners rewards if they are compliant and fully engage with education, training and rehabilitation programmes while in jail.

Those who perform well will received a larger daily gratuity for the prison tuck shop, will have more contact with the outside world and will also be first in line for new accommodation when it comes on stream in jails.

All these policies are contained in the Irish Prison Service three-year strategic plan launched by Mr Shatter at the prison service training centre in Portlaoise today. The three-year plan was drawn up by the new director general of the prison service Michael Donnellan.

Mr Shatter said under the terms of main element of the plan – the community release scheme – he envisaged 400 prisoners being approved for it over each of the next three years.

As part of that new community release plan, prisoners will be released from jail under the supervision of the Probation Service and Irish Prison Service and must engage in community service and structured rehabilitative programmes.

If they adhere to the terms of their release and do no reoffend, they will be officially freed after a period equivalent to half the period of the sentence they still had to serve.

Under current rules, a prisoner sentenced to four years is released after three because all prisoners are entitled to 25 per cent remission.

Under the new system, a prisoner jailed for four years would be entitled to be released after two years into the community programme. Once out of jail, if the prisoner fulfilled their obligations for one year they would be free.