Numbers in women’s prison continue to rise

The number of offenders in Dóchas Women’s Prison continues to rise with 135 inmates packed into a jail with 105 beds.

But the overcrowding crisis in the country’s most crammed and condemned prisons — Cork and Limerick — is easing, with sharp reductions in numbers. Figures in the troubled St Patrick’s Institution for Young Offenders are also down dramatically.

Penal reformers welcomed the drop in numbers in Cork, Limerick, and St Patrick’s, but remain deeply concerned at sanitary conditions, particularly in Cork.