Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 99: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if his attention has been drawn to the recent report from the Irish Penal Reform Trust showing that three out of every five prisoners are likely to reoffend within a few years of their release; his views on the level of recidivism among prisoners; his plans for measures to counter this trend; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28344/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that the Irish Prison Service facilitated the major study of prisoner re-offending by the UCD Institute of Criminology which is the basis for the recidivism rates presented by the Irish Penal Reform Trust in its recent report. This research analysed dated relating to over 19,000 prisoners in Ireland and found that 27.4% of released prisoners were serving a new prison sentence with one year. This rose to 39.2% after two years, 45.1% after three years, and 49.2% after four years. The fact that over 50% of prisoners do not re-offend within four years of release, compares well internationally. The Irish Prison Service provides a range of rehabilitative programmes with the dual aim of providing prisoners with purposeful activity for the period of the sentence and supporting them to lead more productive lives on release.

Prisoner rehabilitation involves significant inputs from general and specialist services from within the Irish Prison Service and in-reach statutory and non-statutory services. Amongst these are healthcare, psychiatric, psychological, educational, work and training, vocational, counselling, welfare and spiritual services. These services are important in addressing a wide number of issues such drug and alcohol addiction, missed educational and vocational opportunities, anger management, and self management. The Irish Prison Service places a particular emphasis on access to educational services and on the provision of work and training activities for prisoners. Educational services are available at all institutions and are provided in partnership with a range of educational agencies in the community including the VECs, Public Library Services, Colleges and the Arts Council. Broad programmes of education are made available which generally follow an adult education approach and literacy, numeracy and general basic education is the main priority. I am glad to say that a significant expansion of vocational training programmes has taken place in recent years . We currently have over 90 workshops in place in our prisons capable of catering for in excess of 800 prisoners each day.

The Irish Prison Service is also delivering programmes aimed at reducing the demand for drugs within the prison system through enhanced security measures as well as education, treatment and rehabilitation services for drug-addicted prisoners. The introduction of Integrated Sentence Management system (ISM) across all prisons and places of detention is another important development. As the Deputy knows the central aim of ISM is to move to a prisoner centred approach to the management of custodial sentences. ISM is to identify, deliver and measure appropriate interventions to address the identified risks and needs of prisoners. ISM is currently operating in seven prisons, Arbour Hill, Midlands, St. Patrick's Institution, Training Unit, Wheatfield, Cork and Portlaoise. Currently there are 350 Prisoners engaged in ISM. It is intended to roll out ISM in all other prisons to all newly committed prisoners with sentences of one year and upwards during 2010. It is recognised that helping prisoners maintain links with family is vital. In this regard the Probation Service of my Department makes a significant contribution to supporting prisoners to prepare and reintegrate back to society.