Dr. Kevin Warner:

I will respond on the question regarding size. This is a good question, because the size of a prison population is ultimately a political decision and not something that happens as a result of external factors. Countries can decide how many people they will imprison and work to that. I am glad the committee has made a decision to visit Finland, where it is government policy to reduce the prison population. Finland has been doing this systematically. After the Second World War, its prison population was very high and it has been reducing it since. First it reduced it to other Nordic levels, but has now reduced it well below these.

It is a question of political realism, as Professor O'Donnell said. In September 1995, we had 2,054 people in prison, almost the same as in the previous September. Perhaps it would be better to look at this in terms of the rate of incarceration per 100,000 of the population, because the overall population has changed over the years. The rate has fluctuated from 98 to 100 in recent times. For many years up to 1995 our rate of incarceration was always below 62. Therefore, going from 62 to 98 is more than a 50% increase. When I suggested we cut by one third, I was simply suggesting we reverse that increase so that we reduce numbers to approximately 3,000.

There are all sorts of considerations to be taken into account, such as the rate at which we imprison people, how long we imprison them for and how quickly we release prisoners. The largely forgotten Whitaker report does not state it explicitly, but if we relate what it discusses to the population of the country at the time, it refers to a rate of incarceration of 50. We might say the country has changed greatly since then, but it has not changed greatly since 1995. The level of crime has not changed either. As Professor O'Donnell would probably tell us, it has dropped since then. Therefore, we could certainly look to go well below a prison population of 3,000.

A question was also asked about remission. My submission went back to the Whitaker report, which suggested one third rather than one quarter remission in general, as suggested by others here. However, they suggest 50% remission for juveniles. This week, the Irish Penal Reform Trust spoke about 50% remission for anyone serving a sentence of under five years. These are all good ideas. The Whitaker report also suggested measures we see taken in Denmark, such as releasing people earlier under supervision and on certain conditions, perhaps drug treatment, education or work. We need a whole range of initiatives.