Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch. The State is facing a significant problem of overcrowding in prisons, an issue which the Bill seeks partly to address by way of provision for the construction of another prison. It should be noted, however, that this is not the route being pursued by other countries. It is disappointing, moreover, that because of financial constraints, many prisoners will have to share cells in the new facility. That cannot be in any way dressed up as a positive development. Prisons and hospitals are the two places where people should not have to share with others. That is so for two very different reasons, but both have to do with respecting the dignity of the person and, in the context of prisons, respecting the safety of the person.

The Oireachtas Sub-Committee on Penal Reform, of which Senator Ivana Bacik is a member, made the straightforward recommendation that all prison sentences for non-violent offences of less than six months should be commuted to community service orders. It also recommended that the Government adopt a decarceration strategy to reduce the prison population by one third over a ten-year period. I certainly support that recommendation and urge action to achieve it. In May of this year the Council of Europe published a very interesting report which found that high prison populations are a consequence of government policy rather than an increase in the incidence of crime. In other words, prison overcrowding and increasing prison populations in European Union countries are a function more of the length of sentences imposed than the number of people actually being incarcerated. In fact, experts agree that where politicians constantly raise the issue of crime as being a massive problem in society, those politicians then feel obliged to provide for lengthier sentences, which results in more people in prison. This is a temptation in particular for the main Government party, which has always maintained that it stands for law and order and advocates tough sentences for criminals. It says as much on the Fine Gael website.

The question of prison populations being inextricably linked to politics and the policies of political parties is an important one because it shows that it is not necessarily about an increase in the incidence of crime.

The governor of Norway's Bastoy prison, Mr. Arne Nilsen, made an interesting point. He said that the big difference is that in Norway there is no unnecessary political interference in the country's prison system and processes and no pressure from a cynical media. Norway's re-offending rate is the lowest in Europe, at 16%. Mr. Nilsen said:

The Norwegian people do not like crime or criminals, but we have a duty to society and to potential victims to release people from prison less likely to commit more crime. By paying attention and respecting the humanity of the men who come here, that is what we do.

It would be worth while reflecting on and considering this. Too often, we see criminal justice policy purely through the lens of punishment and, perhaps, revenge. However, we work smarter and not harder and provide for a better future for all of us if we try to look at offenders as people who need to be rehabilitated and at our prison system in terms of whether it works when it comes to rehabilitating people or whether our approach is merely the product of a reflex action that is not properly reflected upon. I wonder whether we could learn more from other countries, particularly EU countries, in order to reduce our prison population. For example, young people between 18 and 21 in Germany and The Netherlands may be treated either as juveniles or as adults, depending on the seriousness of the crime, the circumstances in which the crime was committed and the personality of the defendant. In Scandinavian countries, sentence lengths are systematically reduced for young adults.

We are all well aware of the issues surrounding St. Patrick's institution. We have a situation where, of the 193 prisoners held on 23-hour lock-up, 44 are aged under 21. Should this not be an impetus to follow the lead of other EU countries and change the way we deal with young offenders as part of a plan to reduce prison numbers? Will the Minister of State comment on the recent findings from the UK, where the UK Parliament's select justice committee concluded that prison remained an "expensive and ineffective" way of dealing with many female offenders who do not pose a significant risk to public safety? They called for a redesign of the female custodial estate and a significant increase in the use of residential alternatives to custody. Will the Minister of State comment on whether she agrees we face the same problem here when it comes to imprisoning too many people, particularly women, who do not pose a risk to the public? Is this not the point? Is risk to the public not the key issue to be considered? Why do we not do more to provide alternatives to custodial sentencing where people are not violent or do not pose a risk to the public? I accept there must be a punitive dimension to sentencing, but we should look more at restorative justice and other more imaginative measures designed to make people more solid citizens. In this regard, should the Oireachtas not have an in-depth appraisal of our current prison system before we embark on constructing any new prisons?

The UK also plans a change in the law so that for the first time prisoners will receive at least 12 months tailored - called "through the gate" - supervision on release. We should consider this example. Perhaps we should also implement community service rather than think in terms of long prison sentences. The well respected policy think tank, the Howard League for Penal Reform has conducted research which demonstrates that community sentences can reduce re-offending by up to 22%, compared with short custodial sentences of up to 12 months. Community service provides a situation where things get done that probably would not have been done and provides offenders with a routine of work, builds their self esteem and leads to them being able to change their lives for the better, instead of a situation where they are simply locked up at enormous cost to the taxpayer in a school of resentment, revenge and future crime.

In the UK, community service is now officially referred to as a more straightforward "compulsory, unpaid work". Perhaps we should call a spade a spade. I would be interested to hear the Minister of State's view of this. In Britain, citizens can nominate or vote for a project they wish to see benefit from unpaid labour. This is an interesting aspect of the situation worth considering. The Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, was cited on the issue of community payback as saying that punishment should be tough and that people wanted to see low-level offenders out making improvements in local communities as payback for the damage they have done. Perhaps the Minister should consider the idea of projects such as community payback as carried out in the United Kingdom and perhaps he could liaise with British counterparts on this possibility. In The Netherlands, the community service order has been replaced by the so-called "task penalty", which requires a combination of work and training of up to 480 hours to be completed within a year. When imposing a task penalty, the court must state the period of detention to be served in the event of non-compliance. The Dutch example is worth consideration in this regard.

So far, I have focused on the issue of reducing the number of people in prison. Finally, should criminals who have made massive profits from their crimes be treated differently and is there potential within our constitutional and legal architecture to deal with that? In Britain, a recent law means that criminals will have longer prison sentences if they do not pay back the proceeds of crime. One drug dealer there had an extra four and a half years added to a 13 year sentence when he failed to pay back approximately £600,000. This is an example of the type of imaginative thinking we need to use. Obviously, we have a particular structure within which we must work, but we must be more imaginative in our approach.