Alternatives to Custody - recommendations

11th May 2009

In 2006, Business in the Community in association with IPRT published a report on such alternatives, written by Máiread Seymour (for the full report click here). The report recommended that:

1. Consideration be given to the development of a new legislative structure to provide a statutory framework for community sanctions
2. Enhanced resources are directed to the Probation and Welfare Service to execute its role in relation to the preparation of pre-sanction reports and the supervision of offenders in the community
3. Any planned changes with regard to the expansion in the delivery of community sanctions is accompanied by the appropriate level of resources to fund it
4. Consideration be given to developing mechanisms for judicial participation in any subsequent structural development
5. Consideration is given to developing an appropriate mechanism for gathering and analyzing sentencing data and cases as training and guidance resource for members of the judiciary. Judicial training on sentencing and awareness-raising among professional groups, lawyers and judges about the availability and features of community sanctions was recommended
6. Accurate, comprehensive and timely statistical information is released on an annual basis by appropriate bodies including the Court Service and the Probation and Welfare Service
7. Further research is commissioned into the operation of the criminal justice system particularly with regard to sentencing practice, evaluations of community sanctions and programmes and follow-up outcome studies.

On the issue of particular alternatives to custody, the report recommended that:

1. Suspended sentence is placed on a statutory footing and consideration be given to creating more specific guidelines regarding its use. In particular, consideration should be given to introducing a requirement in the legislation that, save for exceptional circumstances, it be used for offenders sentenced to custody for a period of one year or less
2. Community service orders do not replace other “lower tariff” sanctions but be retained as alternatives to custody. The report also recommended that measures be taken by the Chief Justice and Presidents of the High Court, Circuit Court and District Court to ensure adherence to the legal requirement for judges to decide that imprisonment is the appropriate sentence before imposing a community service order
3. Consideration be given to drawing up guidelines around the use of community service orders and an equivalency scale of hours of community service relative to time in custody
4. Consideration is given to not using imprisonment as a default sanction for fines. The use of such sanction has an up-tariffing effect and results in scarce prison resources being wasted on a high flow of short-time fine defaulters through the prison system
5. Deferred supervision is replaced with a statutory community based order
6. Consideration is given to appropriately targeting the level of intervention of a community sanction according to the level of risk of the offender
7. Offenders are appropriately assessed by trained personnel prior to any recommendation for an intensive and/or demanding community sanction. It was recommended that in designing community sanctions attention is given to the extent to which it will provide positive and meaningful engagement with the offender.

IPRT continues to work towards the implementation of these recommendations and towards the re-positioning of the criminal justice system in Ireland in favour of alternatives to custody, with the sanction of imprisonment imposed as last resort.