40% of people released from prison re-offend within one year

Over half of people released from jail in 2020 on public order offences, burglary, property damage, theft and robbery, extortion or hijacking offences all re-offended within a year.

More than 40% of people released from prison in 2020 re-offended within one year of their release, new figures show.

The Central Statistics Office’s data on prison re-offending shows that for 18-25-year-olds, 60% of them re-offended within a year when released in 2020. 

Separately, the CSO said that for under-21s released from custody in 2017, over 84% had re-offended within three years.

Across one-year re-offending and three-year re-offending, the CSO statistics point to a sustained drop in the proportion of people who commit another crime upon their release from prison. In 2011, 54% of those released re-offended within a year compared to 41% in 2020.

According to the statistics, people jailed for public order and burglary offences are most likely to re-offend within a year.

Over half of people released from jail in 2020 on public order offences, burglary, property damage, theft and robbery, extortion or hijacking offences all re-offended within a year.

The CSO said: “Of the 1,137 individuals who re-offended within a year of release in 2020, nearly half (48%) re-offended in just two offence groups — theft (252) or public order related offences (290).

“Individuals released from custody in relation to offences linked to homicide (4), sexual offences (12) and assaults (139) were also most likely to re-offend in public order (57) or theft-related offences (22).” 

Furthermore, people who spent three to six months in custody prior to release were most likely to re-offend at 53%, while only one-third (31%) of people serving more than 12 months re-offended within a year of their release.

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The South-West region — covering Cork and Kerry — had the highest level of re-offending within a year across Ireland in 2020. Wexford, Sligo and Donegal had the lowest re-offending rate at 23%.

Elsewhere in the statistics, the CSO said 61% of people who were released from prison in 2017 were convicted of re-offending within three years of their release.

Similarly, the CSO said that people who’d been jailed for public order offences or burglary offences were most likely to re-offend within three years of release.

Of people released from custody in 2017, 84% of under-21s re-offended within three years compared to 27% of over-50s.

However, in its publication, the CSO stated that these statistics are classed as “under reservation”. The stats body said this classification has been applied “to reflect the concerns of the CSO as to the completeness and accuracy” of Garda Pulse data. 

These concerns have previously been flagged by the CSO with data supplied by An Garda Síochána.