23rd July 2023
The Journal reports on the number of court summonses for failure to pay for a TV licence issued last year. Irish Prison Reform Trust (IPRT) has campaigned for many years to end the wasteful practice of imprisonment for fine payment defaults. Imprisonment for fines default represents a completely ineffective use of Garda, Courts and Irish Prison Service time and resources.
The Journal reported that the Irish Prison Service's Annual Report 2021 published last year shows there were 234 committals to prison for the non-payment of a court-ordered fine.
More recent data in IPRT’s Progress in the Penal System: A Framework for Penal Reform 2022 (PIPS 2022) states that 5.7% of all female committals to prison were for non-payment of court-ordered fines. While this represents a small proportion of female committals, this is over double the comparable figure for men (2.5%). Committals to prison for the non-payment of court ordered fines decreased from 234 in 2021 to 205 in 2022 as recorded in PIPS 2022. While welcome, a disproportionate amount (22%) of such committals continue to relate to women.
Read the article on TheJournal.ie here.
Respect for rights in the penal system with prison as a last resort.