Parole Board chief urges new prison-release system based on behaviour

THE head of the Parole Board yesterday said he favoured the abolition of the remission system in prisons, which entitles inmates to an automatic reduction of 25% off their sentence.

Gordon Holmes said the system should be replaced by an entitlement to parole but that any early release would be dependant on the extent to which the offender reformed himself in prison.

His suggestion was backed by the Fine Gael justice spokesman Jim O’Keeffe.

The chairman of the Parole Board said such a new parole system could reduce the risk of re-offending.

He was responding to findings of the first ever research in Ireland on prisoners’ reoffending rate.

The study, led by researchers in UCD, found that 27% of the 20,000 inmates studied re-offended within a year and nearly a half within four years.

It found that 85% of people in prison for non-payment of court fines re-offended within four years. The highest recidivism rate was for property offenders (49%) and the lowest was for sex offenders (18%).

Mr Holmes said he had “grave doubts” on the remission system and said the authorities in Northern Ireland had announced they were going to abolish their remission system and replace it with a parole system.

“Although the entitlement to remission would remain, the amount you get is dependent on the amount of work you do, in terms of the work you do on your offence, dealing with your drug or drink habit, anger management, sex offender treatment.

“If you do all these things you get maximum remission and if you don’t, you won’t get remission. That’s a system I would favour.”

Mr O’Keeffe said remission should be dependant on taking part in rehabilitation programmes.

He said the UCD research showed many people were being put in jail for relatively minor offences.

He said recent figures showed that on average 1,800 people a year were jailed for not paying fines.

He said the Government had failed to bring forward measures on alternatives to prison and rehabilitation within prison.

Referring to the re-offending rate for sex offenders, Mr Holmes also said it was “unfair and wrong” to include all sex offenders in one category.

He said it included those with a high risk of re-offending, such as paedophiles, with those with a low risk such as people convicted of date rape.

Mr Holmes said he had approached the department about funding research to examine re-offending rates in more detail among serious offenders.

Mr McDowell said yesterday his department funded 66 community bodies providing services to offenders.