IPRT advocates for a national penal policy that is just and humane, promotes effective non-custodial responses to crime and uses prison as a last resort.
Our vision is for Irish penal policy that focuses on non-custodial responses to crime and has rehabilitation and social reintegration at its core. We believe that the emphasis of our penal system needs to move towards diverting young offenders and at risk groups away from offending behaviour at the entry points to the penal system.
We work towards securing long-term commitment to a coherent, evidence-informed, and effective penal policy, underpinned by international best practice. Effectiveness in this context is taken to mean the approaches to offending behaviour which reduce the risk of re-offending and which are seen to have the greatest social and economic benefits while minimising potential social and economic harm.
Key issues for IPRT in relation to the development of Irish penal policy over recent years have included highlighting the rapid expansion of our prison population from 2007 to 2011 (and again in 2018 and 2019) and promoting alternatives to custody through research, advocacy and policy work.
We also engage in public and political debate around crime and punishment to build more informed debate and counteract the demonization of offenders. Some of our media appearances are detailed here.
8th September 2022
MEDIA RELEASE: In response to the publication of the Irish Prison Service Annual report 2021, IPRT is calling on the Minister for Justice to make immediate efforts to adequately and appropriately resource the proposed actions in the recently published Review of Policy Options for Prison and Penal Reform.
31st August 2022
The Irish Penal Reform Trust has today (Wed 31 August 2022) welcomed the Penal Policy Review and associated Action Plan approved by Cabinet.
21st June 2022
CSO reoffending data show that almost 62.3% of people released from prison in 2016 re-offended within three years of their release. The data indicates that 44.6% of people released from prison in 2019 reoffended in the year following their release.
9th May 2022
IPRT Senior Policy and Research Officer, Sarahjane McCreery, spoke with Senator Lynn Ruane on the 'Conversations on the Margins' podcast about the work of IPRT.
28th March 2022
Minister for Justice Helen McEntee TD has published Justice Plan 2022, outlining 159 actions to continue building a justice system that works for everyone.
7th March 2022
The purpose of this first ever Criminal Justice Sectoral Strategy is to develop a shared vision for a more joined-up criminal justice system.
7th February 2022
MEDIA ADVISORY: In publishing the fifth edition of PIPS, IPRT finds that the penal system – in some key areas of practice – has regressed over the last five years. We called for reforms in custodial sentencing policy so that prison is used as a last resort.
7th February 2022
Progress in the Penal System 2021 (or 'PIPS 2021'), the fifth in a series of annual reports benchmarking progress in Ireland's penal system.
24th September 2021
A new report from the House of Commons Justice Committee analyses the impact Covid-19 had on the criminal justice system in England and Wales, and in particular details the lessons that can be learned from how Covid offences were created and enforced during the pandemic.
22nd September 2021
This article conducts a meta-analysis of various studies that seek to find a correlation between custodial sanctions (imprisonment) and reoffending rates. The authors found that no matter what variables were considered, there was always either a null or criminogenic effect of imprisonment on reoffending, and therefore “the limited effects of custodial sanctions on reoffending should be viewed as a criminological fact.”
Respect for rights in the penal system with prison as a last resort.