The work of IPRT is led by a number of standards developed by international bodies, organisations and courts in relation to imprisonment and wider issues of the State’s penal policy. In particular, our work is based on the commitment to implement in Ireland a human rights-based approach to penal policy.
With this in mind, IPRT’s research, policy and awareness-raising campaigns are developed to support and monitor the implementation in the context of penal policy in Ireland of the United Nations and Council of Europe standards.
The IPRT is also committed to the promotion of best practice examples that have proved effective in other jurisdictions. To this end, we aim to provide a comprehensive library of good practices that can be accessed and used by practitioners, academics, prisoners, and anyone else interested in penal reform and penal policy. The Library is updated on a regular basis to take into account most recent developments in this area.
5th July 2022
Consideration and questioning of Ireland by the UN Human Rights Committee under ICCPR took place on 4-5 July 2020. Here, we summarise the main questioning relating to penal reform.
7th October 2021
IPRT was one of the civil society organisations chosen to make a statement at the pre-session meeting of Ireland’s UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on 7th October 2021.
8th April 2021
The Council of Europe (CoE) has published 'SPACE I' Annual Penal Statistics on Prison Populations 2020. The report contains a detailed breakdown of penological trends across Europe. IPRT summarises key findings from both European and Irish perspectives.
7th April 2020
The Council of Europe (CoE) has published 'SPACE I' Annual Penal Statistics on Prison Populations 2019. The report contains a detailed breakdown of penological trends across Europe. See IPRT's summary of key findings from both European and Irish perspectives.
27th January 2020
In this submission, IPRT outlines the progress made by Ireland on the 2017 Concluding Observations and further highlights a number of matters that might merit scrutiny during the next reporting cycle of the UN Committee against Torture.
5th July 2019
The European Court of Human Rights has published a factsheet on detention conditions and treatment of prisoners outlines findings of inhuman and/or degrading treatment of prisoners.
11th June 2019
The UN Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice has published its thematic report on women deprived of liberty for the 41st session of the Human Rights Council.
1st May 2019
After a referendum was passed in 2014 in California to recategorise some nonviolent offences as misdemeanours, rather than felonies, what have the effects been on the crime rate?
2nd April 2019
The Council of Europe has published 'SPACE I' Annual Penal Statistics: Prison Populations 2018 report.
25th February 2019
Standards for Children in The Youth Justice System was published by the Youth Justice Board and the Ministry of Justice in February 2019.
Respect for rights in the penal system with prison as a last resort.