Pilot penal scheme likely to expand

Prisoners serving sentences of between one and five years are likely to be allowed to trade part of their sentences for community service, after a successful pilot programme was introduced last year.

The new initiative which the Probation Service believes is "unique internationally" allows existing prisoners who are coming towards the end of their sentence to exchange the remaining time for community work.

The pilot "Return to the Community" scheme was offered to selected prisoners last October with some 70 being approved for temporary relase to work on schemes such as painting and refurbishing hostels for the homeless, last October.

Participants were allowed to swap prison time on a ratio of one month's sentence for each week worked.

The unpaid work typically involved the former prisoner working a three day week with the remaining days reserved for attending training such as return to work courses or addiction therapy. The prisoners were allowed to claim job seekers allowance while woking in the Return to Community schmes.

The Probation Service said just "one or two" of the 70 participants in the first half of the pilot programme which concluded last December, failed to cooperate satisfactorily and had to be returned to prison. A second phase of the pilot scheme is now underway and is due to be completed in March.

Details of the scheme were revealed at the Oireachtas Sub-committee on Penal Reform today where director of operations with the Probation Service Vivian Geiran said he believed the pilot programme was "unique internationally".

Assistant secretary general of the Department of Justice Jimmy Martin told the committee the scheme had the benefit of returning non-violent or otherwise dangerous prisoners to the community and cutting down numbers in the State's prisons.

Mr Martin said the scheme was only at pilot stage, but it had the support of Minister for Justice Alan Shatter and was likely to be expanded when the pilot concluded in March.

He said the Republic had seen a dramatic increase in prison numbers in the period 2006 to 2010 with occupancy rates rising to about 97.8 per cent. It was Government policy he said to investigate other sanctions for offenders, than custodial sentences.

Mr Martin said the increased prison population had placed "huge strain on the prison service in terms of standards of accommodation and he attributed the rise to the number of criminal gangs now being jailed thorough the work of the garda.

Mr Martin also said criminal gangs created difficulties for the prison service.

The Oireachtas committee hearing is continuing.