Prison Being Used As Respite For Women With Many Complex Needs - IPRT

Prison is being used as respite for women with multiple complex needs, when community-based responses would better address women's offending behaviour according to the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT).

Current proposals to build 50 cells at Limerick female prison will only exacerbate the issues, unless matched by a commitment by Government to significantly reduce the female prison population, through the provision of non-custodial alternatives for women offenders.

These are the core findings included in a new IPRT publication, IPRT Position Paper 10: Women in the Criminal Justice System - Towards a non-custodial approach, which was launched by Minister of State for the Department of Health and the Department of Justice, Equality and Defence Ms Kathleen Lynch at a seminar event, Re-designing the Pattern: Women and the Criminal Justice System, which took place in Wood Quay Venue, Dublin.

IPRT Executive Director Liam Herrick said: "There is something profoundly wrong with a society where women seek prison as a place of respite from the chaotic and often dangerous lives they lead on the outside. Prison should be a last resort, not a first resort – this is especially true for women offenders, many of whom are sentenced for non-violent and less serious offences.

"Following the Thornton Hall Review Group report, Government acknowledged that prison building will not address overcrowding issues. The progressive policy developments we have seen in the male prison estate must now be extended to include the female prison estate.

"Any expansion of the female prison estate is short-sighted, and will only compound the cycle of damage to families and communities of sending increasing numbers of women to prison.

"Instead, we need to see low-risk women offenders diverted to non-custodial community-based alternatives, such as the 'one-stop-shops' in the UK, which address the mental health issues, addictions, experience of abuse, poverty, homelessness and other critical factors which characterise offending by women."

(CD/JP)