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provide a significant element of rehabilitation for offenders. The presence of
rehabilitation as a component of community service was regarded by the Irish Probation
Service Officers as an essential link to the core social work ethos under which they had
operated for the preceding fourteen years since their first major expansion (Halton 2007).
The idea that rehabilitation work would continue into the new function of community
service schemes facilitated acceptance by the service to operate the new non-custodial
measure (Jennings 1990). However, in the practical working out of communityservice by
the Probation Service in Ireland divergent practices within the service over time are seen to
emerge, some of which suggest that the probation officer was increasingly adopting the
role of penal agent in enforcing the procedures of community service orders while the
rehabilitative function recededin practice (Halton 2007).
4. The Cost of Incarceration
Baroness Wootton’s report in 1977 in respect of community service that “at least it’s
cheaper” must have registered significantly with Irish prison policy makers in the early
1980s, during a time of economic crisis, due to significant oil price rises, rampant inflation
at c.17% and an embargo on public service recruitment. Indeed the cost of maintaining a
creaking Irish prison system was so severe on the public purse that policy choices were
severely restricted (NESC Report 1984) except for the policy of shedding prisoners on
temporaryrelease on a dailybasis to allowfor the intake of newcommittals.
The Minister for Justice when speaking on the comparative costs of community service
and that of imprisonment suggested that an offender on community service would cost
£18 per week whereas the cost of keeping the same offender in prison would amount to
£424 per week (Senate Debate, vol. 101, col. 867, 7 th July 1983, Mr Noonan). While the
Minister was quick to add that he did not want to give the impression that this was whythe
measure was being proposed, the economic argument undoubtedly was a very significant
factor at that time (Jennings 1990). The cost of maintaining a prisoner at £424 per week
in 1983 was indeed “a frightening one” (Senate Debate vol. 101, col. 867, 7 th July1983, Mr
Noonan) but the potential cost of incarcerating increasing numbers of prisoners brought
forward an even more frightening figure when capital costs for new prisons might be
added to the static figure of £424 per week to simplymaintain a prisoner within the prison
infrastructure alreadydescribed.
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