Vol. 440 No. 2
74 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for Justice the plans, if any, she has to investigate aspects of age profile in the prison population in view of a recent report identifying women in their sixties serving sentences for relatively minor offences.
78 Ms F. Fitzgerald asked the Minister for Justice the views, if any, she has on the detention of women in Mountjoy Prison for minor offences; if she has satisfied herself with the range of alternative sentencing options open to judges for female offenders; and if she will make a statement on the matter.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 74 and 78 together.
The age profile of the prison population, both male and female, is one of many statistical aspects of the penal system which are monitored on an ongoing basis by my Department. The annual reports for prisons and places of detention contain a number of statistical tables on this subject. Instances of elderly women receiving custodial sentences are quite rare. It is a fact that, in several cases, the particular offence which may have resulted in a woman's sentence may be relatively minor. It is not, however, possible to draw a conclusion about the reasonableness or otherwise of the courts decision in these or any other cases without knowing something about the offender's previous criminal history, the number of times other alternatives have been tried and so on.
I am, of course, satisfied that prison should be used only as a last resort and that a range of alternatives should be available to the courts to apply in suitable cases. There are already about 3,500 offenders at any one time, currently on supervision in the community, 850 on Community Service Orders, as an alternative to custody and a significant number of these are female offenders. I am anxious to extend the use of community based sanctions and this will form part of a five year plan for prisons which I hope to release in the near future.
