Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 4 Oct 1995

Vol. 456 No. 4

Private Members' Business. - Detention Facilities for Young Offenders.

Mr. O'Dea

A few weeks ago, a district judge in Dublin imposed a custodial sentence on a 14 year old girl. When a member of the Garda Síochána took her to the detention centre where she had been ordered to be detained he was informed, through an intercom, that there was no space for her there. It is the regularity with which this kind of thing is happening, not just in Dublin but throughout the country, that prompted me to raise this matter this evening. I wish to focus on two matters.

The first is the lack of places. Any person over the age of 16 years can be sent to St. Patrick's Institution. This detention centre, which has served the State well, is now suffering from the same problems of overcrowding and pressure on space as other prisons. Any person under the age of 16 years who receives a custodial sentence is sent to either a reformatory or an industrial school. These detention centres are operated under separate regimes. Industrial schools are also used as remand centres which puts further pressure on space. They are governed by several regulations which are totally outdated and largely unworkable. The rules governing these centres should be updated but the main difficulty is that the number of places available for the secure detention of juvenile offenders is pitifully inadequate. A much greater number of secure places is urgently needed and I wish to ask the Minister whether she recognises this and when she proposes to provide them.

Professional criminals are taking advantage of the situation to the detriment of the community. For example, in my city of Limerick it is well known that professional thieves use people under the age of 16 to carry out the offence while they stay a safe distance from the scene of the crime. They do this in the knowledge that if the young offender is apprehended there is usually no place to detain him. The young offender also knows this and the reward he is offered totally outweighs the risk of being detained for any reasonable period of time which at this stage has become minimal.

I wish to refer to parental responsibility. Under the Children's Act, 1908, parents can be held financially responsible for the crimes of their children. However, this provision is hedged in by a number of restrictions which have made it unworkable in practice. In any case the maximum fine for a child, that is someone under the age of 15 years, is £2 and the maximum fine for a young person, someone aged between 15 and 17, is £10. It is small wonder, therefore, that the courts have rarely, if ever, used this power to impose financial responsibility on parents.

The Criminal Justice Act, 1993, provides that the court can make a compensation order against a person convicted of a crime. it states that if the person is a young offender then the order can be made against his or her parents. The procedure laid down in the 1993 Act is far too cumbersome and has proven unworkable in practice. In no case since the 1993 Act became law — we have to take responsibility for that — has a compensation order been made against the parent of a young offender. The difficulty is that the money has to be recovered in the same way as a civil debt. In cases where compensation has been ordered this has put the onus on victims to pursue the criminal or his or her parent through the courts. This is precisely why the law is unworkable.

What steps does the Minister intend to take in regard to the following: (1) amendment of the 1993 Act to allow compensation orders to be collected in the same way as fines; (2) the immediate provision of secure extra places for young offenders; (3) the extension of the facilities for young offenders to be rehabilitated; (4) measures to directly involve the family of a young person who has been charged with a crime, for example, measures to enable family conferences to be called, to order parents to comply with certain procedures, to attend counselling sessions etc. and (5) to ensure that the Child Attendance Act, 1926, is enforced to combat growing levels of truancy which is inextricably linked to juvenile crime?

I hope the Minister recognisesd that it is necessary to take urgent steps on all these fronts. The country is reeling under an avalanche of crime, a growing percentage of which is committed by juveniles. The old, vulnerable and isolated are cowering in fear in what can now only laughingly be described as the security of their homes. A disturbingly large and growing proportion of that crime is committed by juveniles, hence the need for urgent action.

Minister of State at the Department of Justice (Mr. Currie)

In regard to the provision of detention facilities for young offenders, the responsibility of the Minister for Justice extends to those between the ages of 16 and 21 years while responsibility for offenders under 16 years of age rests with my colleague, the Minister for Education. My appointment last year as Minister of State at the Departments of Justice, Health and Education was a recognition by the Government of the need to co-ordinate services for young offenders and young people at risk between the three Departments.

My priority for those between 16 and 21 years is to make better use of the prison accommodation already available for them and to implement the positive sentence management strategy set out in the Department's policy document The Management of Offenders — A Five Year Plan which was published in 1994. I am satisfied that the determined implementation of measures such as intensive probation supervision in the community and other interventions by the Probation Service will prove more effective than providing additional detention spaces for young offenders. The experience across Europe tends to support this view.

In St. Patrick's Institution, Dublin, there are 122 places for young offenders, both remands and detention. In the open prison Shanganah Castle there are 60 spaces for young offenders while in Fort Mitchel in Cork there are 102 spaces, the majority of which are occupied by under 21 year olds. I should also say that Mountjoy, Limerick and Cork prisons contain a fluctuating number of offenders under 21 years at any time. There has been a major upgrading of the accommodation in St. Patrick's Institution with the provision of in-cell sanitation. The institution's annexe is being examined with a view to assessing its suitability for conversion for education purposes. In Wheatfield there are state of the art facilities for young offenders. The very positive regimes in Shanganah Castle and Fort Mitchel contribute to the development and implementation of educational programmes on the rehabilitation of young offenders.

A number of new initiatives undertaken by the Probation and Welfare Service has been targeted at young offenders. For example, a new project which is aimed at diverting them away from autocrime such as car theft and so-called joyriding has recently commenced in Cork. The objective is to get these young people to understand the seriousness of their behaviour by offering them education and basic training in car maintenance, the rules of the road and the consequences of car stealing for the victims and their families. A project in north Clondalkin in Dublin offers more than 25 young people a wide range of skills and opportunities such as computer skills, lifeskills and sport activities. All projects are kept under review and new interventions will be developed where possible.

There are 210 residential places for young male offenders and 15 places for girls in the young offender centres in the schools under the aegis of the Department of Education. I wish to refer to the five centres for young offenders operated by the Department of Education. St. Joseph's Industrial School in Clonmel has accommodation for 75 boys and accepts boys under 14 years of age on the date of admission. The boys referred to this facility are not guilty of very serious offences and they usually stay there until their 16th birthday. The Finglas Children's Centre is comprised of St. Michael's Remand and Assessment Centre and St. Laurence's Industrial School. It can accommodate up to 20 boys under 16 years who can be sent there purely on remand or on remand for assessment. St. Laurence's Industrial School can accommodate up to 50 boys under 14 years.

Oberstown Boy's Centre, which is a reformatory school, also incorporates a remand facility. It provides 20 reformatory school places for boys referred by the courts for up to two year's detention. Boys are in the 14-16 age range on admission. It also provides ten remand places for boys under 16 years. Such places are used by the courts to detain boys pending decision on sentence. Trinity House School is also a reformatory school and is the only secure facility operated under the aegis of the Department of Education. Unlike the other facilities, it has overt security features and provides 28 long stay places for the most serious offenders in the 14-16 age range on admission. It also has two remand places. Oberstown Girls' Centre is a reformatory school for girls. It accepts girls up to 16 years of age on admission and provides eight long stay places for those sentenced by the court. It also incorporates a remand and assessment unit which can take up to seven girls under the age of 17 years on admission.

I am satisfied with the quality of the services provided by each of these centres. The adequacy of the provision of places for young offenders is kept under constant review by the Department of Education in consultation with the Departments of Health and Justice. However, it has become apparent that there is a shortage of places to cater for young offenders within certain age ranges. Accordingly, I recently announced the following improvements in the provisions for children in conflict with the law. In the case of young female offenders arrangements are being made to provide an industrial school for girls, four additional reformatory school places and three secure places for seriously disruptive girls. In the case of young male offenders arrangements are being made to provide an additional 28-30 reformatory school places. Detailed planning work on the implementation of these proposals is now under way and I am satisfied that these improvements will result in a significantly increased capacity to deal with the demand for residential placements among young offenders. I am satisfied that the present and planned facilities proposed for young offenders are adequate.