Coronavirus: State’s prison population falls by 248

The Republic’s prison population has fallen by almost 250 inmates since the Covid-19 crisis began.

Garda sources say the decline can be mostly put down to falling crime rates due to the restrictions in place to combat the virus and because of the scaling back of some parts of the courts system.

The fall in prison population has allowed for any newly committed prisoners to be isolated away from the prison population for a Covid-19 quarantine period of 14 days – a process that began last week.

The new quarantining system, and other measures, has resulted in no cases of Covid-19 being diagnosed to date in any of the Republic’s jails.

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The scaling back of some parts of the courts system in the Republic due to Covid19 has also led to fewer people being jailed. Some court appearances have been adjourned until the virus outbreak is under control.

However, sources said the decline in the prison population is being driven by falling crime rates, which senior Garda officers have described as unprecedented.

While gardaí were given new powers two weeks ago to arrest people breaching the public health restrictions in place to combat the spread of the virus, the number of arrests under those powers has been modest, at 34.

However, because of the restriction around the movement of people in the Republic for any non essential reasons, gardaí say it has been much harder for criminals to operate and this has resulted in a sudden and significant drop in crime.

“They’d be more obvious to us travelling around and they know they’re much more likely to be stopped and asked about their movements,” said one source.

The prison population includes those prisoners – generally around 4,000 – who are being held in jails across the Republic. However, it also includes prisoners on temporary release and life sentence prisoners released under licence.

The overall prison population and the number of in custody has been increasing close to crisis levels again in recent years as the economy recovered and crime rates increased. That trend is now in reverse.

On March 12th there were 4,726 prisoners in the Irish prison population. That included 4,214 prisons in custody and 363 on temporary release.

However, on Monday that had fallen to 4,478, a reduction of 248 prisoners. On that date there were some 3,822 in custody and 525 on temporary release. At the start of the crisis the Irish Prison Service granted temporary release to about 300 prisoners. When added to the approximate 300 prisoners already on temporary release at any one time, numbers temporarily released reached 588 at the start of April.

However, the fall in the number of prisoners in the Irish system is not related to the larger numbers now on temporary release, as those prisoners on temporary release are still counted as part of the prison population.

Instead, the fall of 248 prisoners in the Irish system is a real reduction in the number of people in the prison population at present.

The Irish Prison Service said its staff had been following all of the public health guidelines and other precautions to protect prisoners and staff during the pandemic. Prisoners displaying possible symptoms of Covid-19 were being tested and isolated pending test results.

“Prisoners who are over the age of 70, have underlying medical issues or are newly committed are cocooning or in quarantine,” the service said in reply to queries. “Prisoners who present as symptomatic and are awaiting test results are monitored by clinical staff daily and receiving appropriate care.”

Many of those granted temporary release as the Covid19 crisis began had only very short periods remaining on their sentences that have now expired, meaning they have been officially freed. This has resulted in numbers on temporary release falling to 525 at present from a high of 588 on April 1st.