Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 10 July 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

Spent Convictions: Discussion

Photo of Lynn RuaneLynn Ruane (Independent)
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Fortunately, while some barriers and concerns get raised the feedback has on the whole been hugely positive, publicly and politically. People have seemed open and welcoming to the idea of expanding spent convictions. That is probably down to the number of representations that people get in their offices and they see that it affects almost everybody, or almost every family, in some way.

Some small concerns get raised throughout the debate. We had a list of questions when we tabled the amendments to the legislation, one of which referenced the issue of whether more than one conviction represents a pattern of offending. I do not come at this with that frame of thinking. I think that if offending is a pattern, not offending is also a pattern. If a period of time has passed since one's last offence, that is a pattern of non-offending. It is about how we engage with the conversation and frame the questions we ask.

I would much prefer to look at what has happened since the person left prison, what they have engaged in and how long it is since they last offended. Those are the patterns that are more important and that will benefit society more.

Another barrier which came up, and which also relates to the next question, is the issue of expanding the timeframe. For example, does expanding from a custodial sentence of 12 months to a custodial sentence of 24 months sentence mean we include more serious crimes? The question posed to me in the Chamber was what crimes are then included. I would look at this question the other way around because that is not how spent convictions legislation is framed and it is more a question of what crimes are excluded. If we were to look at included crimes, we would be making endless lists of every part of law, so it is best to look at what is excluded. It is serious violent crimes that are excluded. There is also the question of what court the case is heard in, and this would relate to the District Court and the Circuit Court. In addition, it is a combined sentence, so it might not be a 48 month sentence and the person might have two convictions that resulted in sentences of more than 12 months on two separate occasions. Therefore, the 48 months can be broken up in a number of different ways.

The victims of crime piece gets brought up as well because, obviously, people are concerned that victims of crime have their own trauma that they have to carry from the date of the offence, and it is very important that we support victims of crime to be able to deal with that. It is about when the person receives the sentence in the court and where the relationship ends between the victim and the perpetrator. It is about how we have those discussions in a way that is not hurtful or damaging to people who feel they have been wronged by an individual or by a certain circumstance. For the person who has committed the crime, their contract is with the State when they leave prison, and their contract to not offend is not with the victim. Ms Ní Chinnéide touched on this in her contribution. It is framed in a way that there is an assumption that victims of crime want punishment forever more for the individual, when many victims of crime actually want to see no more victims of crime from that perpetrator. In many cases, we believe that victims of crime would much prefer to see rehabilitation of a person so crime is reduced overall and nobody has to experience what they experienced.

Those are some of the issues that have come up. I answered the second question with the first. We look at crimes that are excluded rather than included because it would be such an exhaustive list. It is about making sure the crimes we all agree need to be disclosed in particular circumstances and employments would remain the same.