10 Priority Proposals for General Election Manifestos 2024 - IPRT

Whichever party/parties form the next government face an immense task to tackle both chronic and acute problems in prisons and in the criminal justice system more widely to help more people move on from offending. There are many issues in penal policy deserving of attention, but prison overcrowding is among the most pressing. This is where the focus of any new government needs to be in the immediate term. 

Despite many positive developments in recent years led by the Department of Justice, the Irish Prison Service and others to place rehabilitation at the centre of the penal system, our overcrowded prison system is creaking at the seams. As a result, people’s rights and needs are going unmet. This includes hundreds of people sleeping on floors, thousands of people sharing cells, limited recreational space and significant waiting lists to access nearly all vital services.

The Department of Justice-led cross-sectoral Prison Overcrowding Response Group recently identified both the scale of the issue and possible solutions. The Group’s report to the Minister, released following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request in October 2024, includes many innovative and evidence-based proposals to tackle overcrowding. This may offer a roadmap to reform for the next government.  

Imprisonment itself causes serious personal and social harms and often fails to address the root causes of offending. Penal policy that relies on expanding the use of imprisonment will not make us safer. Some of the most effective actions that could be taken to reduce offending in communities lie in innovative policy approaches and investment outside of the criminal justice system. Currently, the State is spending increasing amounts of scarce resources with poor results, when comparatively modest investments in under-resourced communities – through youth work, affordable housing, healthcare and education – would have greater positive effects in reducing offending and producing wider social benefits by meeting people’s basic needs. Against the backdrop of enormous and increasing expenditure on prisons, the case for shifting even a proportion of these resources towards combatting social disadvantage is undeniable.  

In our document, Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) Priority Proposals for General Election Manifestos, IPRT outlines 10 commitments that parties should adopt to make the way in which we deal with people who offend more effective, humane, and less costly – financially and socially. This document gives a short overview of the issues, the context, and makes an argument for why these commitments are needed. Furthermore, IPRT provides concrete examples of specific actions – many implementable in the shorter term – that could be taken to realise these commitments. 

IPRT’s proposals are a call to action. They demand a shift in thinking, real political investment in proven solutions, and a steadfast commitment to ending the cycles of disadvantage and harm faced by most people in contact with the criminal justice system. IPRT looks forward to working with the next Government of Ireland, and a strong Opposition, to implement meaningful solutions. 

IPRT is calling on all parties to make the following overarching commitments in the area of criminal justice –  

Read more details of the 10 commitments IPRT is calling for in Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) Priority Proposals for General Election Manifestos.

For more of our work on elections visit our webpage Elections 2024.