Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 30 Jan 2002

Vol. 547 No. 1

Written Answers. - Juvenile Offenders.

Jim O'Keeffe

Ceist:

936 Mr. J. O'Keeffe asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the way in which young offenders are treated here; the extent of the problem in terms of numbers and rates of recidivism; the extent of the resources employed; and the further measures, treatments and resources which are proposed or are needed to ensure the effective rehabilitation and welfare of young offenders. [1454/02]

Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Mr. O'Donoghue)

For the purpose of this question, young offenders are taken to be those under the age of 18 years. There were 94 young offenders in custody in Irish prisons on 29 January 2002. This compares to a total of 107 offenders in the same category on 26 May 2000. These figures illustrate that there has been a drop in the number of such committals of persons in this age category in the intervening time period.

The majority of young offenders are held in closed institutions, that is, St. Patrick's Institution, Dublin, Fort Mitchel Place of Detention, Spike Island, and Wheatfield Prison, Dublin. The regimes are liberal and as relaxed as possible within the confines of a closed institution. Staff-offender ratios are high, reflecting the relatively long out-of-cell periods in comparison with international norms. Legal provisions for the committal of young offenders under the age of 18 years will, however, change on the commencement of the relevant provisions of the Children Act 2001. This Act proposes that where a court imposes a period of detention on a child, it shall, where the child is under 16 years of age, order the child to be detained in a children's detention school – operated by the Department of Education and Science – and where the child is 16 or 17 years of age, it shall order the child to be detained in a place of detention – provided by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Under the provisions of the Act, separate, dedicated secure detention centres will be required for the accommodation of 16 and 17 year old offenders. The primary objective of these detention centres will be to provide a secure but supportive environment in which young offenders can develop the social skills necessary to avoid future offending. These new high quality, purpose built facilities will be the setting in which a progressive regime will be delivered tailored to the special needs of this group. It is intended to propose two facilities, one in Cork and one in the general Dublin area, to meet the requirements of the Act in this respect.

Records are not maintained in a way which would allow for the provision of exact statistics on rates of recidivism. Recidivism is, however, a recognised phenomenon in all criminal justice systems. Measures in place to address recidivism include the availability of non-custodial options such as the juvenile liaison officer – JLO – scheme which is a Garda youth diversion scheme for young people at risk of offending. While the numbers cautioned through the JLO scheme has fallen by 26% over the last five years – see table below – it should be noted that, since its inception in 1963, 87.5% of those referred have not reoffended within their two year supervisory period.

Year	Number of individuals cautioned
1996	10,539
1997	8,583
1998	7,989
1999	7,844
2000	7,784

For young persons who have pleaded guilty or been found guilty of an offence at court, there are a wide range of non-custodial options, including probation, deferment of sentence under supervision and community service orders. At any one time there are approximately 800 young persons serving various types of sentence in the community. In addition, there are 33 residential places, funded by the probation and welfare service, for offenders aged under 18 years. There is also a wide range of non-residential placements-projects available for this age group.

Within the prison custodial system, there is a wide range of services in place aimed at providing offenders with the means to avoid becoming reinvolved in crime following their return to the community. This principle revolves around self improvement and a consequent increase in confidence and self esteem, leading the individual toward a non-offending lifestyle. The services provided include work skills, training and education and are matched, where possible, to individual aptitudes and abilities, sometimes unrecognised or untapped prior to imprisonment. There is, in addition, a comprehensive package of medical, psychological and other support services available to assist those suffering from particular problems such as drug addiction.

Particular emphasis is, and will continue to be, placed on the rehabilitation of young offenders in custody and, accordingly, a wide range of services, which are alluded to above, are made available. A significant new development in relation to the whole aspect of prisoner rehabilitation is the provision for a new directorate of regimes which will be located in the new Prison Service headquarters in Clondalkin. The directorate will comprise a multidisciplinary team of staff with diverse responsibilities in relation to prisoner programmes. The directorate will be responsible for: ensuring appropriate living conditions for prisoners involving accommodation, catering, laundry and hygiene arrangements; enhancing positive sentence management incorporating access to prison based services and programmes and pre-post release support; ensuring availability of appropriate education, work, training, psychology, welfare and chaplaincy services for prisoners; and developing and implementing prisoner relapse prevention programmes.

Department of Finance has also conveyed its sanction to fill the new post of director of regimes in the Prison Service to oversee rehabilitation measures for offenders in the care of that service. A competition to fill this position will take place shortly.