My Department caters for the detention of male offenders aged 16 years and over and female offenders aged 17 years and over. Offenders under that age cannot be sent to prisons or places of detention operated by my Department except in special circumstances provided for in sections 97 and 102 of the Children Act, 1908. Such offenders may be sent to special schools. These schools are the responsibility of my colleague, the Minister for Education.
Recidivism rates among juvenile offenders committed to St. Patrick's Institution, Dublin in the latest year for which figures are available are given in the following table. The information in respect of other institutions is not readily available.
The Deputy will be aware that my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Austin Currie, has been given responsibility for the co-ordination of policy in relation to children as between the Departments of Education, Justice and Health. He will take special responsibility for the comprehensive new juvenile justice legislation being prepared at present. One of the areas receiving particular attention is the question of pro viding the courts with the power to impose a wide range of communitybased sanctions and measures on juvenile offenders. Such sanctions and measures coupled, as they often are, with supervision by the probation and welfare service tend to reduce the rate of recidivism.