Mounting pressures cramming already full Irish prisons

Last October, the Department of Justice said  Minister for Justice Ms McEntee was engaging with Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath with a view to progressing an agreed schedule of capital budgets. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA

Last october, the justice minister travelled to Limerick to open a new “state of the art” female prison.

The new unit, which could hold 56 inmates, replaced the continually overcrowded old unit, which had just 28 beds. It includes a mix of apartment-style units and a mother-and-baby unit, all with individual en-suites.

Speaking at the new unit on October 18, Helen McEntee said: “These additional spaces are necessary to ensure that we have the sufficient space and facilities to support those committed to serve a custodial sentence in an environment that is safe and has the space and capacity to focus on rehabilitation”.

However, within a month, the Limerick Female Prison was at full capacity. Numbers continued to grow and, as of December 15 last, there were 65 inmates for the 56 beds and, as of last Monday, there were 67 in custody.

In her visit, the minster also announced that 90 additional spaces had been built in Limerick Male Prison.

Prison figures show there were 210 spaces there on December 15, 2022 — increasing to 286 a year later. But the number in custody also grew, from 230 to 324 over the same time period.

The trend reflects what is happening across the system. While six of the 12 closed prisons were over capacity in December 2022, nine were a year on.

The five most overcrowded are Limerick Female (116%), Limerick Male (113%), Cork Prison (111%), Mountjoy Female/Dochas (110%) and Midlands (109%).

The total capacity of the prison system has risen, from 99% a year ago to 105% in December 2023. The figure was 87% in 2017.

The accompanying graphic shows how the pressure on the prison system is mounting all the time.

Prison capacity has increased since 2017, with 229 more bed spaces (up 6%), mostly created in the last two years.

But the total number of prisoners in the system — including those in custody and those on temporary release (TR) — has increased by 34%.

The actual number in custody has risen by 28% and the number on TR has risen by 144%.

Prison insiders and advocacy groups all point to the same issues driving up numbers:

• More court activity, with committals jumping from 6,133 in 2021 to 7,946 in 2023;
• Longer sentences and new offences;
• More people in prison on remand awaiting trial, increasing by around 50% since 2017, and many are on remand for longer;
• More people being convicted for sex offences, which, the Irish Prison Service (IPS) said, is “expected to increase further over the next three years”;
• Increase in female committals;
• Evidence of an increase in people committed to prison with severe mental illnesses.

As of yesterday, there were 4,748 prisoners in custody, the highest since July 26 last when there was one more (4,749).

Estimates suggest the system could hit 5,000 by the middle of this year.

Last October, the Department of Justice said the minister “intends to prioritise” four additional short-term capital projects at Castlerea, Cloverhill, Midlands, and Mountjoy prisons, which could provide for a minimum of 620 additional people over the next five years.

The department said then that Ms McEntee was engaging with Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath with a view to progressing an agreed schedule of capital budgets.

It is understood that none of the projects have yet been approved.

New prison beds were opened last October, however within a month, the Limerick Female Prison was at full capacity. Picture: Dan Linehan

The Irish Penal Reform Trust said it flagged “grave concerns” over rising numbers in prisons almost a year ago.

Executive director Saoirse Brady said: “The continued over-reliance on imprisonment in the courts means that the increase in the number of people in prison was predictable and it will continue to get worse.”

She said community-based sanctions should be the “default option” for less serious offending, especially given that three out of four committals were for a sentence of 12 months or less.

Until meaningful measures are taken to stem the flow of people being sent to prison, we will continue to see overcrowding given the number of new offences coming onstream and increased court sittings.

She said the IPS annual report 2022 showed that the daily average number of women in custody across the two female prisons was already up 20% on the 2021 average.

“Just months later these new spaces at Limerick are now full and the prison is overcapacity,” Ms Brady said.

She said there was a “worryingly” high number of people on remand.

Ms Brady said they are “particularly concerned” about the renewed focus on prison expansion, saying it “goes against established government policy”.

She said the Government should concentrate on its own Review of Policy Options for Prisons and Penal Reform 2022-2024, published in August 2022, so community sanctions become the default option.

A spokesman for the IPS cited the “significant” capital funding the Government has provided, which has seen the opening of the two new units in Limerick Prison, and the Government’s prison policy review 2022-2024.

“The former Minister for Justice Simon Harris announced last April that he had brought a memo to Government outlining capacity issues in prisons — both in terms of the scale of the problem faced and how we might progress medium and longer-term solutions for it,” he said.

Working with officials in the Department of Justice and the Prison Service, he said the Minister identified the capital projects in four existing prisons that could deliver over 400 prison spaces over the next five years.