Criminal Justice (Community Service) Bill, 1983: Second Stage .

Minister for Justice (Mr. Noonan

, Limerick East): I move: “That the Bill be now read a Second Time”.

A White Paper dealing with community service was published in June 1981. A Private Member's Bill introducing community service was presented to this House on 16 June 1982. The following day a Government Bill which also provided for the introduction of community service was presented to the House.

Before going on to talk about the Bill itself, I should like to refer to one or two problems which face us in dealing with offenders convicted by the courts.

The first is that the courts do not always have available to them appropriate sanctions to suit individual cases. For example, case arise where the courts for one reason or another consider, even where the offence may be a serious one, that a sentence of imprisonment or a fine is inappropriate but yet feel that the offender should repay society in some way for his wrongdoing.

In some of these cases community service may well be the answer. However, community service apart, I would favour giving the courts as wide a range of sanctions as possible — provided always, of course, that they are of a practical nature. I am open to any proposals in this regard, particularly to any proposals which would operate as an alternative to a custodial sentence.

This brings me to the second problem which I should like to mention, namely, the difficulties being encountered in providing adequate accommodation for those offenders committed to custody by the courts.

The choice of sentence in each individual case is, within the parameters laid down by the law, a matter for the courts. To that extent, therefore, the number of offenders committed to custody is determined by the courts. The number of offenders being committed has risen over the past decade or so but the increase has not been significant. I want to make it clear that in referring to this matter I do not imply any criticism of the sentencing policy of the courts.

Unlike prisoners in many other countries in Western Europe, most of our prisoners enjoy the relative comfort of a cell each. It may not be possible to allow this situation to continue. Deputies will be aware that it has been necessary in some instance to release prisoners back into the community before their normal release date. Usually prisoners who are released prior to their normal release date are released under the supervision, sometimes under the intensive supervision, of the Probation and Welfare Service. In cases where prisoners have been released because of lack of accommodation it has not been possible to provide this supervision.

However, I would hope that the accommodation problem will ease soon. Loughan House will shortly be reverting to usage within the prison system and the second wing of Cork Prison will also be coming into use fairly soon. Apart from this extra accommodation, community service should help to ease the problem. I would be cautious, however, about any suggestion that community service will bring about a reduction in the prison population but it should at least help to contain any increase in the numbers likely to be committed to custody.

Now I return to the Bill itself. The purpose of the Bill is to provide the criminal courts with a further sanction which they may apply in appropriate cases. Stated very briefly, the Bill provides that when a person is convicted of an offence for which the court considers that in the ordinary way the appropriate sentence would be one of imprisonment, the court may, with the offender's consent, instead order him to perform a specified number of hours of unpaid work. The work contemplated is work of a kind that will benefit the community but that people cannot readily be got to do in the ordinary way for pay. It will generally have to be performed within a period of 12 months from the date of the order. The work will be done under the general supervision of the Probation and Welfare Service of my Department.

First of all, let me say a few words about the origin and background to community service as a court sanction. The idea of making a wrongdoer compensate his victim or, indeed, the wider community is a very old one but the concept of community service as a requirement of an order of a court is relatively new. As far as I am aware, Britain was the first European State to introduce community service as a requirement of a court order, in 1973.

It was introduced there following recommendations made by a sub-committee of the Advisory Council on the Penal System, a body concerned with the penal system in England and Wales. That sub-committee of distinguished lawyers, academics, sociologists and public servants considered, for four years, what changes and additions might be made to existing non-custodial penalties, disabilities and other requirements which may be imposed on offenders. The committee reported in June 1970 and legislation was enacted in 1972 to introduce community service and re-enacted in 1973. Community service was introduced in particular areas on a pilot basis and has been extended since to the whole of Britain. Since its introduction there it has been very carefully monitored and there appears to be general satisfaction with it, though there have been some difficulties. I make these comments because I think it is important for us to see the care with which this new idea was introduced in another country. This Bill which we are debating here today coincides, to some extent, with the relevant British legislation although the opportunity has been taken to improve where possible, in the light of British experience on the corresponding British legislation. Community service legislation was extended to Northern Ireland in 1976 by an Order in Council which came into operation there three years later. It has been introduced also, or is about to be introduced, in a number of other European countries as well as in the United States of America, Canada and New Zealand.

In fact, in one sense we have had a type of community service in this country for the past decade. Prisoners are released under the control and guidance of prison officers to do work for the community which would not otherwise be done; examples of the kind of work which prisoners have done are the construction of a scouts' hall in the Dublin area and the refurbishing of a centre in Dún Laoghaire for the treatment of persons with alcohol problems or alcohol-related problems.

Although the number of prisoners released under this scheme is small in the context of the whole prison population, nevertheless the results have been encouraging and the public reaction to it has been very favourable. The Bill, of course, deals with offenders at the other end of the spectrum, that is, pre-prison stage, since one of its aims is to keep out of prison offenders for whom custody is not essential.

Community service as a court sanction has a number of advantages. For example, it is of advantage to the offender since the making of the order will require his consent and thus he will be given a say in the way in which he will repay the community for his criminal activity. As the order will be non-custodial the offender can continue with his education or employment while fulfilling the obligations of the order in his spare time. There will be the minimum disruption of the offender's family life and if the order is used as an alternative to a custodial sentence it should keep the offender from associating with experienced offenders.

There is the advantage to the community in that the community service order will provide an opportunity to have useful work done which might not otherwise be done. When I say that only work which would not otherwise be done will be undertaken I mean work which cannot be done because of lack of funds. It is certainly not the intention that work which would otherwise fall to be done by a paid work force would be undertaken. The committee to which I shall be referring shortly may be given a role in seeing that appropriate work is made available.

As I see it, examples of the kind of work which would be involved would be helping the disabled and the old with some of the problems which they have to face in dealing with their incapacities, or helping organisations both voluntary and statutory which provide assistance for those people. Other examples of the kind of work which could be undertaken under a community service order are set out in the White Paper to which I have already referred.

There is also the advantage that the courts will be provided with an additional power of dealing with offenders by providing for a sanction suited to the crime. In some other jurisdictions rather striking use has been made of the principle. For example, state and municipal courts in the United States of America order traffic offenders to carry out work in hospitals and in the Federal Republic of Germany juvenile courts can order young offenders with alcohol problems to help in homes for inebriates. However, the success of community service orders does not necessarily depend on any such close connection between the nature of the crime and the punishment. Finally, there is, of course, the important advantage that, applied as an alternative to a custodial sentence, community service orders should slow down the rate of increase in the number of offenders being committed to custody.

New ground is being broken here in many ways, not the least of which is that the community is being given an opportunity to involve itself in dealing with its members who step out of line. The Bill will not achieve its purpose unless the community is prepared to play its part. I can appreciate that some people may be apprehensive about offenders being put to work in the community, particularly since it may involve them, for example, in working in people's homes. In the Bill I have tried to achieve a situation, so far as this can be achieved, where there is little or no risk to the ordinary members of the community by reason of the fact that offenders are sent to work among them.

First, community service will not be an option in respect of crimes for which the law has provided a mandatory sentence. This excludes offenders convicted of murder. Secondly, the judge dealing with the case is required before making his decision to satisfy himself that the offender is a suitable person for community service and for this purpose to consider a report about the offender prepared by a probation and welfare officer. As I have already mentioned, the offender while doing his community service will be under the general supervision of a probation and welfare officer. I believe these safeguards are adequate and should allay any fears which people might have on this aspect of community service.

I might add here that it is a matter for the Probation and Welfare Service to satisfy the court that arrangements can be made for the offender to perform work under a community service order. Once the order is made the service will have the responsibility of ensuring that the offender carries out the work. It may be necessary for the service to employ people either on a paid or a voluntary basis to supervise the actual performance of the work. Ideally, these supervisors would have some expertise or experience in the performance of the type of task involved. In those circumstances, apart from providing necessary supervision, those supervisors should be able to ensure that a reasonable standard of work is maintained.

In both Britain and Northern Ireland there are committees or boards vested, to varying degrees, with responsibility for community service. The Northern Ireland Probation Board, of which there is only one, is somewhat similar to the British committees. Our situation is, of course, different from that obtaining in either of those jurisdictions. Our Probation and Welfare Service is organised on a national basis and is directly under the control of the Minister for Justice, always bearing in mind, of course, the individual probation and welfare officer's responsibility to the courts in matters pertaining to the courts' functions.

However, with a view to involving the community in the operation of the scheme here, I am considering the feasibility of establishing a committee to monitor the operation of the scheme and to advise on any problems which may arise in that regard. They would also advise on possible improvements to the scheme. The committee, if established, will be representative of the various interests involved, for example, the voluntary and official social aid groups, Judiciary, the trade unions, employers, and so on. Indeed, I am happy to say that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions have already indicated to my Department their general approval of this scheme. In the course of implementing the scheme I expect it will be necessary for the Probation and Welfare Service to have further consultations with the trade union movement particularly at local level.

An important aim of the Bill is to try to ensure that compliance with the community service order does not jeopardise the offender's employment or his availability for employment or unduly disrupt his family life. The Bill, therefore, provides that directions as to the times at which an offender may be required to do the work shall, so far as practicable, avoid any interference with times the offender normally works or attends school, and the Bill is framed on the basis that the work will be carried out in the District Court district where the offender resides. If he fails to comply with the order, proceedings may be taken against him for failing to comply with the order without reasonable excuse and he may be fined up to £300 without prejudice to the continuance of the order.

There is the alternative method, of course, of dealing with the offender for failure to comply with a community service order: he can be returned to the court which made the order and dealt with there for the original offence. The court to which he is returned may revoke the order. This might be appropriate where the offender had almost completed the order but for good reasons could not complete it. On the other hand, if the offender refused to do his community service the court could revoke the order and deal with him for the original offence as if the community service order had not been made in the first instance.

The Bill also provides that if the offender moves from one part of the country to another — for example, in the course of his employment — the community service order may be amended to allow him to do his community service, as I have already stated, in the area to which he has moved.

The Bill provides for a review of the community service order where circumstances have changed since the order was made and the interests of justice dictate that it ought to be reviewed. The review will be carried out by the District Court in the area where the offender resides. An example of where an order might be reviewed in the interests of justice could be where the offender, because of deterioration of his health or for family reasons, was unable to continue with the work.

Before I finish, there are perhaps a couple of provisions of the Bill which I should specifically mention because they seem to draw most reaction from those consulted on the proposals.

It is a requirement of the Bill that the offender must have consented to the making of an order. It has been suggested to me that, that being the case, few orders are likely to be made. Let me explain why this requirement has been included in the Bill. First, it would be highly unlikely that an offender would comply with the order unless he accepted it in the first instance. Secondly, it is important that we do not breach even the spirit of International Conventions dealing with forced labour to which we have subscribed. I believe offenders will consent to the making of community service orders: after all, the alternative is imprisonment or detention. I believe offenders will see the positive aspect of community service as against a custodial sentence.

It is also a requirement of the Bill that the maximum and minimum periods of work under community service orders shall be 240 hours and 40 hours respectively. These might be thought to be arbitrary figures. When the British sub-committee considered this particular aspect of community service they recommended a minimum of 40 hours and a maximum of 120 hours. However, in the course of the passage of the Bill through Parliament there the upper limit was raised to 240 hours.

It is the view of many observers and, indeed, of practitioners involved with community service there that offenders put on very long hours tend to break down and end up in prison anyway. An order requiring very long hours could influence an offender as to whether he should continue to comply with the order. Furthermore, supervising officers tend to make unjustifiable allowance for offenders who just cannot complete their long number of hours. Some offenders would, no doubt, prefer a short sentence of imprisonment to a community service order which would require them to work all their spare time over a long period. However, these time limits are not sacrosanct and there is, as far as I can discover, no real scientific basis for them. I am, therefore, prepared to consider any constructive suggestions in regard to them.

Finally, the Bill provides that it shall come into operation on such day as the Minister for Justice by order appoints. The selection and necessary training of staff for this new scheme and the making of necessary rules and regulations will take some time but I can assure the House that there will be no unnecessary delay in bringing the Bill into operation.

On this basis, I commend this Bill to the House.

Dr. Woods

: Quite naturally we welcome the Bill as a useful measure as we introduced it and we were in favour of this kind of action. On Committee Stage we will deal with it in greater depth but our questions at present relate not only to the detail in the Bill but to the general matter of law and order and the effect this Bill may have on the problems facing the community. When the Minister came to office there was on his desk a draft of a more major Criminal Justice Bill and presumably he is still examining that. That Bill would have a major effect on the state of law and order. It is somewhat disappointing it has taken the Minister so long to bring in what is a relatively simple Bill, one that we consider could have been brought in during the first month in office of the new Government.

We must recognise that people outside are extremely agitated, frustrated and anxious about the whole security question. The country is facing a breakdown in law and order of unprecedented proportions. Mugging, housebreaking, car stealing, assault and drug abuse are commonplace, particularly in the major cities and the urban areas, but are also widespread throughout the country generally. I was struck by comments made recently at a youth conference that the problems which we have come to associate with the major urban conurbations are becoming commonplace in rural areas. One person said that people were mugged when they went into the streets and thus it was dangerous to be in the streets but if they stayed at home their houses were broken into and he asked where were people supposed to go. We are quite familiar with that situation in the cities but I was surprised to see that it existed in country areas. It rings a warning bell that the problem is widespread and action will have to be taken to deal with it on that basis.

What people want is urgent action from the Minister and the Government. I say this in all sincerity. People are genuinely frustrated at the inability of the total system to handle the situation. They are looking for urgent action. They want resources committed to solve a rapidly-growing problem. They want legislative and administrative action, and they want it in a hurry. There is no great reason why such action cannot be taken. I can assure the Minister he will have our full co-operation in passing this Bill quickly or in passing any other Bill relating to this problem. He will have our support in taking any action relevant to dealing with law and order in our society. Within the administrative area there are a considerable number of actions which the Minister could take.

I am a little disappointed at the approach of the Government in recent times. Deputy Gregory raised a question this morning about a new Cabinet committee to deal with heroin. As far as the public are concerned this is good news and they are delighted to see something being done. Recently the newspapers published a story dealing with this problem but when I read it through I found that all it meant was that two sections will co-operate to a greater degree in the hope that better results may be obtained. However, that kind of action is not adequate in the present circumstances. As a Government we took definite administrative action to deal with the drugs question. Before we left office we introduced a new chief superintendent with the specific purpose of bringing the power and intelligence of the serious crime detection section to deal with the problem of drugs. We tried to upgrade the whole approach and we provided additional staff for the Drug Squad. It may be that more staff is needed here but any administrative action in this area will be supported by us.

Urgent action is required at this stage. One of my concerns is that the man in the street is becoming increasingly frustrated about the present state of affairs. At public meetings and elsewhere I find it difficult to explain that this Bill is an important facet of the total approach. The man in the street cannot see it doing anything urgently and he wishes for more vigorous action. In view of all the discussion and concern about this matter I am afraid that the citizen may consider we are bringing forward a very minor measure. I hope the Government have not expended all their energy on this Bill because it is only a small part of the total problem.

People no longer feel secure and safe in their community or in their homes. They see thieves and vandals flouting and laughing at the law and those who have to enforce it. They see vigilante committees set up to defend themselves and punishment squads carrying out their own forms of rough justice. It is an extremely serious situation. This kind of action is taking place in my area and also in the centre city areas. I have been involved in late night sessions with vigilante groups where they were literally physically protecting themselves and their homes. I have had to try to defuse situations that were becoming very nasty because, I believe, if vigilante committees continue in the way in which some of them started it will lead to serious problems. It is important to realise the urgency of the situation, not to complain about these people doing what they have done to try to defend themselves but to support the people in the community and have a situation where they will not need to act in the way they have been acting. I will come back to that matter later.

What we need urgently is an emergency programme to combat crime, but it must be comprehensive. It is only on that basis that I would fault the Minister's move here today: I would not fault it in itself as a move. He has taken an important and valuable step but if it is not accompanied by an emergency programme to combat crime we will not succeed and we will be faced with serious problems.

Unless we look at the matter comprehensively we will not realise the reality and extent of the problem. I have difficulties in talking to people about this matter because they are so upset about it. Many people have had the privacy of their homes invaded, they have been mugged and their cars have been stolen or vandalised. Schools have also been vandalised. Because of all this, the reaction of many people is one of bitter frustration and they are not inclined to look at the nature and the causes of the problem. They want immediate action and suggest various types of action which are fairly widely publicised.

As regards the components in the programme, one must face the reality that if employment and involvement are not created for young people we will not overcome problems regarding crime, certainly not in the short term. When I say that to people at meetings or otherwise, they tell me that in the past if you had not a job you did not steal or rob cars. However, there is no point in talking about the past because many circumstances have changed over the years. I do not broadcast this because I want rather to help the communities than broadcast their problems in the media, but I am very familiar with the situation in the small hours of the morning, my own area having one of the highest crime rates in the country. On checking the position, over 90 per cent of those involved in crime who have been apprehended are unemployed. This gives an indication and a very serious warning of the underlying problem. We can theorise as much as we like that we personally would not steal, rob or vandalise because we had no job. The reality of the present economic situation is that if we do not provide jobs or give employment, we will find ourselves in difficulties.

In one area with which I am familiar, 26 per cent of those between the ages of 16 and 25 are unemployed. That is one of the reasons for my being concerned about the overall action of this Government. As is evident from the budget, budget debates and discussions, the Government are not providing an atmosphere of hope in relation to job creation or the provision of funds to provide the necessary jobs for our present particular and peculiar circumstances. One element is the question of the whole atmosphere and environment being provided. Another element very directly related and relevant is that of sports and recreational facilities. Most of the youth involved generally in sports or in clubs of one sort or another do not become involved in crime. Those who do become involved in a very minor fashion and have help in sorting themselves out very quickly. It is evident that involvement in sports and recreational facilities has a major part to play in relation to youth, but the present economic thinking has led to cutbacks in the national programme for their provision. This is a wrong policy, particularly in relation to youth crime prevention.

A third element about which one might not think a lot but which is particularly important in dealing with crime on the streets is the community infrastructure, which we have not needed to examine previously. There are two small points which are extremely important. One is money being made available to close up laneways for security reasons. We have closed off a lot of laneways with tremendous benefit to the population generally and a lessening of attack on parked cars and so on. This must be done and generally speaking the community are very anxious to see it done, but the problem is getting the necessary funds. The Minister might consider this for his community service orders, if the money is not being made available elsewhere. There is little cost involved. Another question in that infrastructure area is that of lighting generally. Dark patches and the delay in repairing lighting create serious problems in communities around Dublin. People are frightened because of the lack of attention to these matters.

Leaving aside these general underlying problems, we come to the question of crime prevention and detection. We believe very firmly that gardaí on the beat are a major bulwark against crime and its development. They are the most important deterrent and preventive measure and it is particularly important that gardaí be available in the community and on the beat. In our period of office, we increased the number of gardaí by 2,000, some of whom are still being put through their training. It is an on-going programme. That was regarded as a very dramatic measure. I was present at the meeting at which that decision was taken and it was a decisive administrative action taken because of the reality of the position on the streets. Obviously, it was expensive but at an earlier stage in the development of this country there were far greater numbers of gardaí, without going back to the days of the RIC, when the numbers were very much larger again.

: It would be quite in order to compare the prison system with the system proposed here — that is quite in order — but to date the Deputy has been dealing almost exclusively with the detection of crime.

Dr. Woods

: If you will allow me, a Cheann Comhairle, to proceed I shall do my best to deal with the problem. But I must make it clear that I am conscious that here today we are putting a very small part of the Criminal Justice Bill outside this House on to the streets. People are extremely frustrated. If the Minister does not indicate to them very clearly that this constitutes a small part only of a major attack he plans making on this area, then there will be additional frustration. That is basically the point I am endeavouring to make.

I mentioned the question of vigilantes in crime prevention. In this respect we must look urgently at the provision of crime prevention committees within the community and community relations gardaí. I believe such provision could offset the effects of what has been happening, could provide the kind of relationship within which the measures proposed here today could be effected satisfactorily.

I raised already the question of the Minister bringing forward the major Criminal Justice Bill. This is urgently needed and I hope he will come forward with this Bill very quickly. The public want to know what the Minister is going to do about such matters as giving more power to the gardaí to question and arrest suspects in regard to serious crime. They want to know if he will introduce mandatory minimum sentences for mugging elderly people, for house-breaking, robbery with violence and assault. They want to know if he will crack down with penal servitude and perhaps have mandatory sentences for the unlawful possession of firearms and explosives. They want to know if he will tighten up on the conditions of bail and provide for consecutive sentences. At present the public see too many crimes being committed by people out on bail or some other form of release and they are concerned that this situation be tightened up urgently. The public also want to see a crackdown on loitering, particularly in groups. More parents are claiming that parents generally should be held responsible for the vandalism and crimes committed by their children. For instance, in many cases cars are stolen around 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. at which time naturally parents should know where their children are.

In that sense the community want to see that the punishment fits the crime and is seen to fit the crime. At present they see too many criminals getting off too lightly, too many being released too soon with no room in our prisons to contain those people who should be contained there. The Minister made reference to this. Indeed he said this Bill would not ease that situation all that much. Obviously it will remove from the prison system some of the people who should not really be going into prison at present. I am familiar particularly with many of these young people who require a form of corrective action which is not imprisonment. At least the provisions of this Bill will provide one or a number of these forms of action.

When we look at what is happening to our prison service we see the need for some action such as is proposed in this Bill. I was concerned at the statements of the Minister in this respect. He said there would be some easement of the position within prisons as a result of some completions expected, one in Cork. Then he continued to say:

I examined the capital situation to ascertain what the Minister is doing more generally. Here I found the position somewhat frightening. For example, on capital services I ascertained that the 1982 outturn was £16.5 million. The estimate we were planning to provide for this year in that respect was £18 million. I find then that the Coalition's estimate is down to £11 million.

An Ceann Comhairle

: Surely that is a matter for the Estimate, Deputy.

Dr. Woods

: It is a question of the provision for the prisons here. I really think you are being excessively restrictive on me, a Cheann Comhairle. The Minister has talked about the prisons, about prison availability and the order relates to people who are at present either in prison or who will come out of prison.

An Ceann Comhairle

: I think 90 per cent of the Minister's speech was on the Bill. The Deputy has been speaking now for almost over half an hour and, in my opinion, he has not come to the Bill as yet.

Dr. Woods

: I respect your opinion, a Cheann Comhairle. But I am at present talking about the prison service to which this Bill certainly relates. I cannot see how it does not relate to prison services.

There is no great need for us to go through the Bill in detail because it was prepared and introduced by Fianna Fáil. We welcome the flexibility which the Bill will provide. It is important that the Minister indicates, in conjunction with this measure, that he intends introducing a comprehensive emergency programme to deal with the crime situation. The Government have a duty to support the Minister in his attack on crime. We will be demanding action on the Criminal Justice Bill during this session. There is no reason why that Bill cannot be brought before the House because the draft was in the Minister's possession in December. While I appreciate that the Minister, and the Cabinet, may want to include other matters nevertheless it should be possible to bring the Bill before the Dáil soon.

The Minister should have another look at the question of finance for our prisons, particularly the probation service. The Minister has told us that the terms of the legislation will come into operation when he introduces an order and I hope that will not be delayed by financial considerations. He hopes there will not be any unnecessary delay but I am concerned about the question of staff and whether the necessary finance will be provided. Very often business people tell us that cutbacks are necessary in the social area and that there is need for investment in economic development but privately those people emphasise the need to protect homes and look after law and order. The community in general will support the allocation of resources for this because there is a realisation that we need to root out the godfathers of crime who have developed in our community, those who operate protection rackets and control the pushing and supplying of drugs. We will give our support to the Minister in his efforts in that regard and we hope the Government will provide him with the necessary resources. It is important that we support those who stand up to the criminals.

The situation in our prison system is bad. Some of the Juvenile workshops in St. Patrick's have been closed. I understand that inmates have been sent to look at videos for longer times during the day and that sort of thing. Early releases are being forced which are not related to the offenders' readiness for release. Holiday breaks of up to 14 days have been introduced for a person on a one-year or two-year sentence. This is a good measure provided it is used for the right reason.

In the course of his speech the Minister stated:

Unlike prisoners in many other countries in Western Europe, most of our prisoners enjoy the relative comfort of a cell each. It may not be possible to allow this situation to continue.

That is an indication of the pressure in this area. About 50 people each week are committed to Mountjoy and St. Patrick's Institution and the complement is a little over 600. Obviously it is not possible to keep people there for the right length of time and they will be released for the wrong reasons. A rough calculation shows the average stay to be about 12 weeks, although some will be there for much longer periods and others for much shorter periods. I believe that Loughan House is now empty and I am glad the Minister has confirmed that it will continue to be available and may ease some accommodation problems.

There is much talk about tax offences and the need for imprisonment but I would suggest that community service orders might be more appropriate in some of these cases, although in some instances committal to prison may be the only proper measure.

I welcome the Bill, although I do so with some trepidation. I have talked about these measures at many meetings in the community but people become entirely frustrated and want to deal with the immediate problems. The Minister must devise a more comprehensive programme. However, he will have our full support in putting this measure through the House.

Mr. Keating

: I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I believe it to be essentially a good measure. There is an obligation on all of us to ensure that the proposal before us, which has been nudged along by a number of Ministers for Justice, should not be misinterpreted or in any way politically abused. It is clear that this measure is a part of a necessary progressive programme to deal with crime and the manner in which people in custody must be treated.

There are few greater scourges than that of lawlessness. I would strongly assert that this Bill is in no way to be interpreted as a less than fulsome response to that problem. There is a very great need for a determined attempt by the Government and all in positions of authority and influence to see whether we can turn back this enormous tide which threatens to engulf us. In my constituency I am mindful daily of the increasing tragedy of a society in which people are unable to live in any kind of security. I am convinced that any Government would be concerned to do something about this problem and I am assured that fundamental consideration is being given to this need.

One should not damn this Bill and there was a hint of condemnation in the remarks of the previous speaker when he implied that this was the Government's answer to the problem of crime. That is not so, but it underlines the courage and the vision of the Government and the Minister in seeking to introduce a measure which is reforming and progressive in nature at a time when if we were to play to the gallery much more repressive, superficial and emotive measures might be introduced. Certainly tough measures will have to be taken but I would hope they would be part of a measured and thought-out policy rather than an emotive response to the problems of our society.

This measure is undoubtedly very timely and will afford us an opportunity of focussing on some areas of the criminal justice system which until now have received scant attention. The answer to crime is rarely as simplistic as it might appear. It is not merely a question of bigger doors and locks and more prisons. If this were the case the problem would have been solved long ago when people were hanged for stealing sheep. It is not that kind of problem. Our efforts must be channelled into the preventive area and dealing with the catchment areas of crime, tackling the real causes of crime which in many cases are social and economic. That is the real challenge but it is not an area which is likely to pay immediate dividends. It is not seen to be politically attractive and on occasions is seen to be politically risky in terms of the public perception that a person who advocates that line is somehow "soft" on crime. That is a risk which people who believe in a principle must run.

There is no mystery about crime. I could today put into an envelope and hand to the bank manager painting the railings in Finland, to whom Deputy Woods referred, to be locked in the vault if he is back in his job, the names of people not yet out of primary school who will one day be in prison. It is as predictable as that unless we intervene at a fundamental level.

I congratulate the Minister and his predecessors on bringing this Bill before the House. It is clear that the courts system and the prison system need more flexibility, more capacity to respond to the specific case and the needs of the individual. It will allow us for once to focus if not on the victim at least on the community to whom injury has been done. No matter how repressive the legislation, no matter how tough the measures or how long the sentences, none has done or will do one iota to make reparation to the broken bodies or the robbed communities who have been injured by crime. I am often struck by the fact that so little consideration, analysis or investigation is given to what happens to the victims of crime. I know people who take it as the normal part and parcel of daily life to be robbed or mugged. I have constituents who were robbed on six occasions in one week. I can point to a shopkeeper whose shop was broken into on six occasions in one week. I can point to people much closer to my home who have been robbed four times in one week, occasionally with violence and — this is a reflection on all of us — who have given up hope that any of us will do anything about it and in some cases do not even bother reporting these crimes any more.

I believe that the Community Service Bill may afford us an opportunity of insisting on reparation and restitution being made to such people because it is a Bill which allows us the opportunity of meeting two needs, neither of which has been dealt with as well as it might have been up to now. One of those is the undoubted need to try to ensure that we can, if possible, convert people whose lives are pointing towards a life of crime into useful members of the community. That can only be done by a sensitive, humane, and, where possible, individualistic type of approach to the people involved. Secondly, this Bill will enable us to do justice to the people on whom the crimes have been committed. Up to now we have had a relatively inflexible prison system and no consideration whatever given to the victim. Obviously, in those circumstances neither the needs of the criminal nor the community are being met. It is not surprising that the prison system at the present time is failing us and has been doing so for some time not merely for those reasons alone.

Surely, it is not too much for us to ask to what extent we should see convicted people as a potentially useful resource? The great platitudes in this area about rehabilitation are that people have an essential goodness, that we should seek it out and should develop it so that the incipient crime orientation will be overcome and that those people will once again become useful members of the community. There was an article in a magazine called Contemporary Review of January 1976 by Martin Wright, who spoke at the fifth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Treatment of Offenders in Geneva. He said that every day some ten million humans are imprisoned. He also said that in this statistical age we do not even know the actual number. He asserts that prisoners are commonly either exploited or under-employed and in the latter case the slack institutional tempo incapacitates them and by the time they are released for normal work, which the prison stigma makes still harder to obtain, they find it even more difficult to adjust to the normal day to day routine. That is an essential difficulty for somebody involved in an attempt at prison rehabilitation.

How does one reconcile the concept of trying to train or develop people for life in a normal community while that training has to be done, quite naturally and understandably, almost completely in a closed institution? If we can think in terms of convicted people as a resource, as people who are part of the latent potential which the country has to offer, and even though that resource has to be handled with great delicacy and sensitivity and in most cases in institutions of one kind or another, surely it is wrong for us to assume that no good can come from such a resource? This Bill puts the foot in the door of opening to us access to that resource so that we can help the people in prisons to rediscover what the essence of rehabilitation is, the discovery of meaning in their lives. There is no point whatever in us assuming that some form of chemistry takes place within the four walls of a prison cell and that by some extraordinary process people discover this kind of meaning in their lives and are turned into good citizens. It does not happen like that. It is only if people are afforded the opportunity of meaningful or useful work or educational access or some way in which their lives once again rediscover dignity and status that they will get off the treadmill of crime.

I do not want to overstate the potential in the Bill but the Community Service Bill points us towards a situation where the criminal may become decriminalised by the process of dignified and useful contact or work in or with the community and will also restore some of what has been stolen from the community. I am mindful of the fact that there are always difficulties in any such proposal but it strikes me as being an opportunity not just for the Department of Justice but for the trade union movement to become very much involved. There can be no doubt but that ample work needs to be done which will not be done in the normal productive sector, which will not be done in the semi-State sector and which will not cause difficulty for trade unions who are obviously concerned at the moment about the unemployment effect on their members. I would like to ask the Minister to consider involving the trade union movement in co-operation with the Department in seeking out appropriate avenues which could be explored for the purposes of this Bill. From that type of approach we are likely to get much more satisfactory results.

It is well that we have an opportunity to learn from the experiences of other countries. It happens that we have in this House regularly, and in some cases almost inevitably, to adopt what happens in Britain. Once again this is reflected in this Bill but that does not in any way make it essentially regrettable or bad. We should look a little beyond that offshore island off the coast of Europe to continental countries where similar schemes were instituted many years ago. If we do that we will see that we can learn from the lessons learnt, for example, in Sweden or even in Germany. They have instituted such alternatives to imprisonment with success and yet have managed to convince the electorate and the public, because the political consideration must not be obscured either, that this is a true answer to crime, not some kind of soft option which can be interpreted as being soft on criminals but the way to deal with the human problem which, in the immediate and long term, is the right form of investment for many people in our prison system.

In an interesting article in the New Statesman of 19 September 1980 the Governor of Winson Green Prison in Birmingham gave his views, which are appropriate. He did a computer analysis of 4,093 people who had passed through his prison between the beginning of July 1979 and the end of June 1980. The Governor, Mr. Roger Attrill, said that of these 2,071 people, that is 50.6 per cent, were in his eyes as a governor of long experience unsuitable for that type of imprisonment. From my experience as a member of a prison visiting committee and having had a long time interest in this area that profile of unsuitable prisoners is mirrored by the situation here.

The governor gave figures to illustrate the sentences given to these people. Of the 2,000 plus people I referred to, 360 were serving sentences of a week or less; 275 people were serving one to two weeks; 90 were serving two to three weeks; 392 people were serving three weeks to 30 days; 348 people served one to two months; 276 served two to three months and 319 served three to six months. In many of these cases there were few and sometimes no previous convictions. The nature of the crime for which these people were imprisoned was not such as would put the public at risk in any serious way. I do not want to make light of the crime involved but as the governor said:

It is absolute economic nonsense to put a man inside for fourteen days for not paying a £50 fine when it costs £240 a week to keep him there. This is compounded by the fact that shortage of resources and work facilities mean he is fed, clothed, locked up for 14 days and probably spends them lying in the cell doing nothing. If it is not possible for him to work off his fine by community work then we should be told why.

That is the experience of an English prison governor. I have spoken to governors here and know they share the same view. The difficulty for politicians is to convince the public.

What we are attempting to do in the Bill should not be misinterpreted as being something else. It is clear that the wastage of resources in having a large prison population locked up in some cases for 23 out of 24 hours a day, is an admission of defeat by us all and particularly by the Department of Justice. I am glad an attempt is being made to try to redress that situation. However, I would enter many notes of caution. There is no point in welcoming this measure unless we also accept that the greater flexibility involved and the "out of institution" situation which will apply to people assigned work under the Bill will involve some mistakes. I recall occasions on which we were asked in the wake of people who absconded while on parole whether parole should be done away with. It is clear that it should not be and that there is a great deal of good in having such a system which goes unsung. Just because people abscond—in most cases they are caught or come back voluntarily—does not mean we should overturn the whole system.

In his speech the Minister said there would be close supervision and selection of prisoners so I am hopeful that there will be few if any errors. However, there will be some and we must accept that as the price of progress. If the selection and supervision process is done correctly those assigned such work will not put the public at any significant risk. We should pay tribute to people who have done work in this area already. I know that in the Kilmainham District Court years ago District Justice James O'Sullivan was able to sentence two teenagers to repair a roof they damaged at Drimnagh CBS. I know other judges have used their discretion and sentenced people to do work of a similar nature. The Minister referred to that when he spoke about prisoners presently released under the control and guidance of prison officers who do work for the community which would not otherwise be done. He gave examples of where prisoners have constructed a scout hall in the Dublin area and have refurbished a centre in Dún Laoghaire for the treatment of people with alcohol and alcohol-related problems. The natural instinct of judges—who have given outstanding service to the country in the difficult demanding job of full-time contact with people who are unfortunately the epitome of unhappy aspects of society—has been to do something better than lock people up.

The Bill the Minister introduced formalises that and will give power to the courts to propose alternative sanctions. It will have to be monitored very carefully but it is essentially an enlightened measure. I hope at an early stage the Department of Justice, in conjunction with other Ministers, will deal with the fundamental areas which give rise to criminality among young people. These are urban deprivation, jobs and lack of education. Most of the prison population are virtually illiterate and that is not a coincidence. I hope this Bill will be part of a series of measures brought before the House.

We can learn from the experience of other countries. In Sweden the national Swedish council for crime prevention have produced numerous reports to see whether the traditional prison system— locking someone up for a definite period and then releasing him—can be improved on. A prison sentence is usually the last thing to be resorted to by any judge. No-one wants to put a person behind bars if there is an alternative. The Probation Act, which is well-intentioned, is often applied misguidedly. If a person was dealt with firmly but compassionately on the first occasion he erred that might solve the problem. The truth is that our natural reluctance to put someone behind bars means quite often that people involved in criminal acts come into contact with the guards and the courts on a number of occasions before they are ultimately given a sentence. At no stage was the error of their ways brought home to those people. We must develop the prison system as a more flexible weapon in social engineering. There is no reason why people who commit certain offences should not serve very brief sentences in prison. One of the disadvantages of the prison system is that a prison sentence ruins people. It effectively destroys them and there is scant hope, except for the most courageous and resourceful, of rebuilding their lives after a prison sentence. In many cases it is a sentence of death in terms of the person's development, fulfilment, career and family.

On the question of drunken driving, I see no reason why there should not be a mandatory jail sentence, made up of one or two weekends in prison, and in certain types of vandalism this approach could also be adopted. There is a very interesting experiment being carried out at present in Germany where young people are being dealt with in this fashion and the indications are that it is successful. The short, brief sentence gives the offender a clear indication of what the loss of liberty is. It is a very short, sharp, traumatic and effective deterrent because it will not happen again. It also avoids the present excessive loss for a first time offender, who in most cases loses his job and in many cases his wife and friends and public esteem. There is no reason why anybody should know, except the person involved, about such a sentence. I am convinced that that is an option open to us which should be used in relation to dealing with vandalism, using the prison as a much more flexible, innovative and sensitive instrument than the blunt one of being sent down for three months, which inevitably has the repercussions to which I referred earlier.

I hope that the State will take on its full responsibility with regard to finding employment for people who have been in prison and playing their full part in schemes such as this. I mentioned earlier on that somebody who is convicted of an offence loses their job in the State service. There was a case recently where a chap who was convicted of assault, involving a fist fight, automatically lost his job in the Army. The fact that he was told by his solicitor to plead guilty is neither here nor there, but it is another interesting comment on what is happening at present. Over the years I have asked in this House how many people who had been convicted of an offence are at present employed in the vast and burgeoning State service. I would like the Minister to tell me whether there are any such people, because the best information I could get from his predecessor was that there was none. I do not want to know who they are or where they are employed. I am not interested in ferreting out such information but I am interested in the State playing its full part in this kind of scheme and not throwing the responsibility on to the private sector. It is wrong that somebody should automatically lose their job in the public sector because they are guilty of an offence of this nature. I can understand how a young man could lose his job in the Army if he was convicted of an arms offence or a breach of security, but for a young lad to get drunk, have a fist fight, be convicted and thereby lose a promising career is quite wrong. There is no point in the community at large, presumably the private sector, being expected to afford work opportunities under this Bill or other measures if the State does not carry out its responsibility too.

Very good and sensitive work is already being done in this area. The juvenile liaison officer scheme and the heartening report of the probation and welfare service shows that this kind of flexible, sensitive approach to crime is going to pay dividends. Obviously, it will not help in relation to the professional criminal, the godfather of crime or the group of families who are at present campaigning strongly in the Dublin city area and possibly around the country to subvert our young people by injecting drugs into people as young as 11 years old. The Bill was never meant to deal with such people; other types of measures, which will leave them in no doubt as to where we all stand, will have to be introduced to cope with these gentlemen who at present seem to be able to waltz through the law, either on technicalities or for other reasons. However, the Garda are to be congratulated on their efforts in the drugs area.

It will be noted from the 1981 report on the probation and welfare service that the total number of new cases that the service dealt with was 1,909 compared with 1,712 in 1980 and that that increase is reflected also in statistics under the aegis of the juvenile liaison officer scheme, the purpose of which is to deal with young people prior to the courts dealing with them.

This Bill should be widely welcomed because there have been demands for such measures over the years from a variety of bodies. I have in front of me, for example, a memo from the Irish Association of Social Workers who were campaigning for such a measure. They put forward a comprehensive document in relation to the needs here also and the Minister has met many of them.

This House is faced with a very great challenge in trying to deal with the problems of crime. I wonder whether we should make some attempt to work structurally on an all-party basis to deal with the problem in some respects because there is a temptation for politicians to exact the last political ounce out of any opportunity that might present itself. I was struck by what Deputy Woods said earlier on. He is not here now but I thought he left himself a little open to criticism. He referred to spending long evenings with vigilantes. I gathered from what he said that he was trying to dissuade them from actions they were going to take. Two other Deputies on the far side of the House have recently become embroiled in that area also and I thought Deputy Ahern was unjustly dealt with in the interpretation of his remarks. I heard the interview and I felt that the interpretation of his remarks was that he favoured vigilante groups. Perhaps Deputy O'Dea should explain further his reported remarks of the weekend but, apart from that, I know of nobody else in this House who would give any comfort, encouragement or succour to vigilantes of any shape, form or kind. The mentality of the vigilante is that of incipient criminality because it is to take unto oneself the obligation and the right to enact justice. That is not to say that one does not understand frustration but we must clearly distance ourselves from any such proposal or thought. However, we cannot merely do that. There will, inevitably, be much greater recourse to such illegal measures unless the Garda and those of us engaged right through the system in dealing with crime are more successful. The challenge is fundamental and I know that the Garda are very frustrated at present at the way they have to carry out their work but, despite the difficulties and the growing lawlessness on the streets, the response to that must be a formal, legal response, not an arbitrary, vigilante type response. We have enough incitement and inducement to law-breaking relating to fiscal matters at present from people who should know better, without taking guns, knives and other weapons into our hands to deal with crime on our streets. That cannot be tolerated and it is incumbent on all Deputies to say clearly that they have no interest whatever by implication or otherwise in giving such support.

Another reason why the Criminal Justice (Community Service) Bill is right and proper and will work relates to the present policies on fines. It is fundamentally unjust that the present sentencing policy inevitably means that either one pays a fine of a specified amount or goes to jail for a period if one cannot or will not pay the fine. The inevitable result is that the poor person has a far greater likelihood of ending up in prison. As I have said, it is only the poor who are in prison, relatively speaking. The number of people in other walks of society who end up in jail is very small and if by some mischief they slip through the mesh they will not stay there very long. Therefore, if a person genuinely cannot pay a fine — and last week at one of these infamous clinics which politicians are forced to hold a young woman came to see me and her husband had the previous day started 12 months in jail because he could not pay a £750 fine, he had not got the money——

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 20 Apr 1983

Criminal Justice (Community Service) Bill, 1983: Second Stage .

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 20 Apr 1983