Progress in the Penal System: A framework for penal reform (2022)

26th May 2023

On 26 May 2023, IPRT launched Progress in the Penal System: A framework for penal reform (2022) (or 'PIPS 2022'), the sixth in a series of annual reports benchmarking progress in Ireland's penal system.

Since 2017, the PIPS project has set out a clear vision for the future of the penal system. From the outset, the overall purpose of PIPS has been to promote and assess progress across a broad range of issues in Ireland’s penal system, guided by a set of 35 standards. The reality is, however, that accessing data that relates to the various standards has often been challenging.

In this sixth edition of PIPS, the 2022 report reflects on the past six years of monitoring the Irish penal system – the progress made, the areas where little change has been effected, and the issues about which we still have a limited understanding due to a lack of data.

Due to IPRT’s previous efforts to place a more in-depth focus on a smaller number of standards during the pandemic years, many of the standards assessed in PIPS 2022 have not been assessed in PIPS since 2019, with some not assessed since 2020. In 2022, the report reviews 28 of the 35 standards that have become synonymous with PIPS.  

Of the 28 standards assessed:

• four were classified as having progressed
• five as having regressed
• no change was registered in nine cases
• while eight standards were classified as ‘mixed’ (indicating that there has been progress towards the standard in some areas and regress away from it in others)

A summary of all standards assessed is available at pages 14-15 of the report.

Read Progress in the Penal System: A framework for penal reform (2022) online here.

Read the summary of the PIPS 2022 report online here or download it below.

The Progress in the Penal System project is kindly supported by a donor-advised family fund and the Community Foundation Ireland.