The Irish prison system is overcrowded to the point that prisoners are not being afforded their “basic human rights” and legislation is required to allow for the early release of more prisoners, the Irish Penal Reform Trust has said.
The Irish Prison Service should, the trust argued, have the power to release remand prisoners who have been denied bail by the courts as part of an effort to ease overcrowding.
Caron McCaffrey, director general of the service, has previously highlighted the growth in the remand prison population as a significant strain on an already overcrowded system.
She noted that people on remand cannot be released by prison management as the courts have ruled they should remain in custody pending trial.
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A report on the Irish prison system by the Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Degrading Treatment (CPT), published this week, strongly criticised the level of overcrowding across the Irish prison system.
Since the committee’s visits to Ireland, which concluded in May of last year, the prison population has increased by more than 10 per cent to 5,539 prisoners.
Responding to the report, Niamh McCormack, the trust’s legal policy and public affairs manager, said overcrowding was “pervasive” across Irish prisons and “negatively impacting all aspects of prison life and posing safety concerns for both prisoners and staff alike”.
Ms McCormack noted that early or temporary release had been used by prison management to control prisoner numbers. However, she said to make way for newly committed prisoners, the power to release others must be expanded.
“Reducing the population in pre-trial detention and expanding the availability and encouraging greater use of community-based sanctions, where those are appropriate, is a clear way to do this safely and effectively. Legislation to address these key issues must be prioritised,” she said.
The Council of Europe’s report on the Irish prison system recommended that when a jail has reached capacity, no more prisoners should admitted.
It also found there had been an increase in allegations of abuse of inmates by prison staff, including an incident which left a prisoner with “significant disabilities”.
The report described severe overcrowding in some prisons, with some inmates having a living area of just 2.8 sq m.
When the committee members concluded their visits to Irish jails in May of last year, the prison population was 4,950, with 541 prisoners on temporary release. 944 prisoners in the system were on remand awaiting trial, up from 696 in the five years since its last inspection.
