Courts sentencing criminals at quicker rate than State can provide prison spaces

ANALYSIS:Prison overcrowding is forcing the early release of huge numbers of convicted criminals

OVER THE last three years the Government increased the strength of the Garda force by 2,000 members to its current record of 14,600. But we now have nowhere to jail many of the criminals that all the extra gardaí are catching.

The Irish Prison Service has been forced to free almost one in five prisoners because it simply has no room for them.

A total of 938 people who have been convicted of crimes and sent to prison are now walking around free in the community at a time when they should be still in jail.

The revolving door prison system is back.

The worrying thing for the Government is that an already dire situation is going to get a lot worse. And this is going to happen very quickly.

A study of prisoner numbers over recent years and months lays bare the grave situation that is going to unfold in the not too distant future.

Last October the number of people in prison had reached 4,000 for the first time. Last Thursday that figure had climbed to 4,274; an increase of 7 per cent in just nine months.

But this increase is only part of the picture. The extent of the prisons crisis – and a crisis it most certainly is – is to be found in the rate at which the Irish Prison Service is now releasing inmates early to make room for new committals.

In response to queries from The Irish Times, the Irish Prison Service said the number of inmates now on temporary release is 938, or 18 per cent of the prison population.

Last year the number on temporary release was running at an average of about 520.

The total prison population – that is, those currently in prison and those who should be there but have been granted early release – now stands at 5,212. There is a bed capacity in the system now for 4,066 inmates.

The Irish Prison Service has noted “a consistent increase in the total prisoner population over recent years”. In the last 12 months numbers have grown by 432, or 10 per cent.

If this trend continues for the next 12 months, which is practically a certainty, the prison population will increase to 5,733.

And if there was a repeat the following year – which is very likely – Ireland’s prison population will reach 6,300 in 2012.

While 1,720 beds have been added to the prison system, mainly by building new jails, since the first of the last three Fianna Fáil-led governments came to power in 1997, there is very little confirmed for the years ahead.

Only 200 new prison spaces – in a new wing in Wheatfield Prison, Dublin – are in the pipeline. A total of 300 new spaces are also planned for Portlaoise Prison and the Midlands Prison, both in Portlaoise, but there is no definite timeframe on that project.

That means in 2012, when the next general election is due, Ireland will have room in its jails for 4,266 inmates and a further 2,000 criminals that should be in jail will be released for lack of space.

The Irish Prison Service is now in an unenviable position. Its director general Brian Purcell has quite rightly pointed out that he is obliged to take in everybody sentenced by the courts. “I cannot put up a ‘no vacancies’ sign,” he has said.

The difficulty for Mr Purcell is that the gardaí are catching, and the courts sentencing, criminals at a much quicker rate than the State is providing new prison spaces.

About one in four people committed to prison every year is jailed for non-payment of fines. The Fines Bill will end that practice.

However, because most fine defaulters are only held in jail for a very short period, usually less than 24 hours, there are very few of them in jail on any given day. Removing them all from the system will offer only a negligible relief to overcrowding.

Tagging, which has real potential to ease the problem, is also planned but a pilot project has not yet begun.

The mooted new jail in Thornton Hall, north Dublin, will provide 2,200 places. But although the site for the jail was bought almost six years ago it will be at least another five years before it is built.

At that stage the prison population and early release of criminals will be at runaway levels unless long overdue alternatives to imprisonment are developed.

In Norway, for example, all prison terms of eight months or lower can be commuted by a court to non-custodial punishments, such as community service and drug treatment courses.