Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 19 December 2012

Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Sub-Committee on Penal Reform

Penal Reform: Discussion

2:45 pm

Mr. Paul Delaney:

I wish to add a rider to that. There is a principle called the responsivity principle, a principle on which there is great emphasis in other criminal justice jurisdictions. Basically it means matching the offender to the type of staff member and programme that will work for him. That is very important in terms of the training. We concentrate on ensuring that the staff we have delivering our services deliver them in accordance with the same evidence-based model. This means no one is doing his own thing. Many of our clients have literacy issues and we have staff members who are specifically trained in this regard. Many of our clients have anger management issues and these are all issues which staff must be trained in. Otherwise people simply do not come back; offenders vote with their feet and will not come back to our project.

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