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eyond the area of offenders for whom a Judge believes imprisonment would be
appropriate.” (Dail Debates vol. 342, col. 310-311, 4 th May1983, DeputyShatter).
As will be seen, DeputyShatter’s suggestion to use community service more extensivelyas
a sanction was not acceptable to the Minister. Despite a series of amendments to use the
sanction more widely the Minister positioned the sanction to perform one primary
function namelyto ease prison overcrowding. Thus the sanction was to be used onlyas an
alternative to a custodial sentence andnot in substitution for anyother formof penalty.
3. Rehabilitation not working in Irish Prisons and Offered by Community Service
The extent to which rehabilitation was ever a stated aimof Irish prison policyis reflectedin
the Report on Prison and Places of Detention (1981) where rehabilitation as an aim of
penal policywas clearlyqualified and presented as secondaryto security. The primaryaim
of the prison system was to contain offenders securely. However, it was obligatory upon
the prison service to provide such facilities for an offender for his “self-improvement”
which might help him to turn away from a life of crime “if he so wishes” (Report on
Prison and Places of Detention (1981:29).
In Irish sentencing law the rehabilitation of the offender is considered one of the primary
aims of any sentence. The realisation of that rehabilitation through executive agencies of
the state maynot always be achieved. In People (AttorneyGeneral) –v – O’Driscoll (1972)
Frewen – Court of Criminal Appeal 351, Walsh J. stated that “one of the objects of
sentencing was to induce the criminal to turn to an honest life”. In another part of the
judgment reference is made to the possibility of the accused’s “redemption” from a life of
crime. Such redemption, to use such a quasi-religious term, might best be achieved
through rehabilitation whether in a custodial or non-custodial setting. However, the
rehabilitative programmes in the Irish prison system have always been challenged by
counter-veiling factors such as the lack of facilities, resources and chronic over-crowding in
cells. In Mountjoy Prison Dublin, the use of heroin by inmates was so widespread it was
necessary to create a drug-free area for inmates who wished to be separated from such
influences andthis was locatedin the training unit of the prison.
It would be incorrect to assume that the Irish prison system immediately prior to the
introduction of community service operated on the classic lines of penal welfarism as
identified by Garland (2001) in the U.S. and in England and Wales up to the early 1970s.
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