Short jail sentences ‘serve no purpose’

The imposition of short sentences serve no purpose given most of them are not actually being served, a top legal expert has said.

Tom O’Malley, a barrister and senior lecturer at University College Galway, said while there were almost 7,400 committals to prison in 2010 for sentences of less than three months, there were only 38 in custody on a given day.

“This suggests there is an enormous through-put of very short-term prisoners within the system and it poses the question as to whether there is any point in imposing short sentences if they are not going to be served to any meaningful extent,” he said.