Vol. 456 No. 3
38 Mr. E. Byrne asked the Minister for Justice the proposals, if any, she has to establish a system for collating statistics on prison residents, including the type of crimes for which they have been sentenced, the sentences received, and the length of time served; her views on whether such a system would facilitate necessary research; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13793/95]
Most of the information listed by the Deputy is available in the Annual Reports on Prisons and Places of Detention. However, current methods of record-keeping would not facilitate the ready compilation of statistics on the length of time served by individual prisoners.
I agree that the compilation and analysis of statistical information is a vital tool in aiding research into the prison system and an investigation is currently in progress into ways in which the use of information technology would allow the availability of such information to be improved.
