Families of homicide victims welcome plans for minimum jail terms

Mon, 28 Mar, 2022 - 19:30

Cormac O’Keeffe, Security Correspondent

Families of homicide victims have welcomed announcements by Justice Minister Helen McEntee to allow the courts to impose minimum jail terms for certain murders.

AdVIC (Advocates for the Victims of Homicide) said it has been campaigning for such legal changes for a long time and will be keeping an eye out for the published proposals.

Ms McEntee, who hopes to bring forward her plans before June, said she has been considering this matter “for some time”.

She said the changes would give judges a new legal power in cases where a person is convicted of murder.

While murder automatically comes with a life sentence, the judge will have the discretion to stipulate that the person must serve a certain period in prison before he or she can even apply for parole.

Until last year, murderers could apply for parole after seven years, but this was increased to 12 years.

Ms McEntee said that judges would be able to set a tariff of 20 years, 25 years, or 30 years that must be served before parole.

Judicial discretion

She said it would be entirely a matter of judicial discretion.

However, she said she was thinking such tariffs could be applied in cases involving child victims, multiple murders, or murders with a “particularly sexual or sadistic element”.

Joan Deane of AdVIC said they welcomed the measure, pointing out that they have been campaigning for it for many years.

“The term 'life sentence' is one of the most misleading phrases in the criminal justice system as life simply does not mean life,” said Ms Deane.

“Murderers were eligible for parole after seven years until recent changes saw that increased to 12 years, so families were always left with the worry that a killer might walk out of prison after a very short period of time.”

She said that where a killer had taken multiple lives, families were retraumatised as the person effectively got off “scot-free” as only one life sentence could be imposed.

"In essence, the criminal justice system was further compounding the grief that families suffered after losing a loved one through violence.”

“AdVIC has campaigned for a number of years to see minimum sentencing introduced and would like to thank Marie Louise O’Donnell for her efforts during her Seanad term to introduce the Criminal Justice (Judicial Discretion) (Amendment) Bill 2019 which would have given judges discretion to recommend a minimum sentence for those convicted of murder with minimum tariffs of 25, 30, and 40 years.

While we have yet to see details of the proposed legislation, anything that gives certainty to families of homicide victims will alleviate their suffering somewhat.”

She said that, in many cases, minimum sentencing will still not be enough for some families, as the victim’s loved ones were the only people serving a real life sentence.

“While the average time served by murderers of 20 years is often quoted, the vast majority ultimately get to go home one day," she said.

“In contrast, there is always an empty chair in the homes of families of victims of homicide on special occasions every year like Christmas or birthdays that serves as a cruel reminder of a cherished life that was lost.”

Prison Service figures show that the average sentence of a ‘lifer’ granted parole and released from prison is 20 years.

The average jail time has fluctuated over the last two decades, but has generally increased since the early 2000s when the average length was as low as 11 years in some years.

There are 360 ‘lifers’ currently in custody with up to 60 serving over 20 years. It is thought that John Shaw is the longest-serving lifer, at 46 years.