Mr. Eddie Mullins:

I am always amused when people talk about recidivism and then look at the Prison Service. If recidivism and criminal behaviour are reported in the media, it is usually reported with a prison in the backdrop. In reality, however, recidivism happens in the community, not in prison. With recidivism, a person comes into prison, serves his or her sentence, is released, drifts back into criminal behaviour and goes through the process again. That is how the recidivism rate is measured and how it happens.

Prisons are certainly not perfect, but when people come into prison and avail of whatever services are available, be it work, training, education, addiction services or psychology services, they go through that process and then when they leave prison they very often find themselves back in the community with no support. After engaging with the various services within the prison, there is then a void. The people who are involved in criminal behaviour are out there waiting for people to come out of prison and lure them back into this criminality. A void is created, which is clearly evident when people go back into the community. We meet and talk regularly to people who come back into prison. For example, we might see a guy who comes in after being out for a month. When we ask them what happened, they are very open about it and tell us straight away that as soon as they left prison, they had nowhere to go, could not stay with their mother or whatever it might be. Then, a lad they met in prison looked after them, sorted them out with something and the whole cycle started again. The piece that is missing is strong support for people in the community. That does not only mean accommodation but addiction services and employment. A person coming out of prison is used to a structured day. All of a sudden, the day is long and people have nothing to do but drift around and may drift back into their previous company. As I have always said, prison is only a portion of the rehabilitation process. The majority of it should happen in the community.