Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not wish to prolong the debate given that we are all in agreement on the merits of the amendments. As I should have stated when I was speaking about the sentencing guidelines, we have an unfortunate history in sentencing practice of overuse of short sentences and of committing far too many people to prison for far too short a time. I hope we will see a change to that through the introduction of the guidelines, although I recognise there has been a good deal of change in recent years thanks to the enactment of the Fines Bill 2010, and far fewer people are now sent to prison for the non-payment of fines. In 2013, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, on which I served with Senator Conway, produced a report on penal reform in which we agreed with the approach of the Irish Penal Reform Trust. We called for less use of prison, for prison to be a sanction of last resort and for a cap on the numbers of people being sent to prison. In that context, I am glad the plans that Senator McDowell had when he was Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform for the building of an enormous prison at Thornton Hall have since been shelved, and I commend subsequent Governments on not proceeding with that because we do not need that number of prison places. Senator McDowell has acknowledged the lack of rehabilitative function that prison serves, particularly when people are sent to prison for such short periods, and it would be far better to consider community-based sanctions, as we recommended in our committee report in 2013.

On Senator McDowell's point on the gender differential in sentencing, I have researched the area and extensive research has been carried out elsewhere. Women tend to comprise a far smaller proportion of offenders than men, at no more than 10% in any jurisdiction, and where women are sentenced for similar offences to men, there tends to be somewhat more lenient treatment in most cases, but that is largely due to family circumstance being taken into account and women being much more likely, in Ireland as elsewhere, to be the primary carers of children. Judges are unwilling, therefore, for good reason, to imprison women where so doing would deprive the children of a primary carer. Conversely, women who are convicted of serious offences are treated more severely in many cases and are certainly more extensively stigmatised, especially for participation in violent crimes. It is not always the case, nor is it so simple or straightforward, that women are always treated more leniently. The research shows that there is a more nuanced reality.

Perhaps Senator McDowell did not intend to do so, but it is unfortunate that he used the one example of false complaints of rape because we know that it is a very rare occurrence and that there is an all too prevalent myth in our society that women make false accusations of rape more frequently than the reality. Again, there is extensive research which shows that myth has no basis in fact but, unfortunately, it still informs certain attitudes and stereotypes.That is exactly why on Report Stage I will be bringing forward the amendment to section 17, about which I spoke, to ensure judges would have power and be given guidelines on the charges they should give to a jury with reference to the sexist attitudes or stereotypes that in the past have prevented prosecutions for rape from proceeding effectively or in the same way other prosecutions proceeded. The rape crisis centres, Rape Crisis Network Ireland and others have raised this issue. We have also seen it raised in the context of other recent cases. I will not say any more about it now, but we do need to challenge the sexist assumptions that have pervaded and, unfortunately, influenced the conduct of rape and sex offence trials. The Bill is an excellent vehicle to bring forward the changes we want to see in the criminal justice processes.