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sentences would have been custodial sentences if the option to suspend a sentence was not
available to Irish judges? Or would a significant number of these cases have been disposed
by way of fines, probation or conditional discharges in the absence of such a penalty? The
study reveals that a significant proportion of suspended sentences in Ireland are made
essentially to control the future behaviour of the offender where the court might retain
some degree of residual ownership. Instead of imposing a punishment for past
misbehaviour, the suspended sentence allows the court to control the future behaviour of
the offender by placing an obligation on the offender to comply with conditions of the
suspension. In this way the extraction of retribution is contractually held in abeyance in
exchange for a promise of good behaviour. The role of rehabilitation in the suspended
sentence is integrally established in this perspective where the change in behaviour of the
offender is the objective to be achieved.
Conditions which are attached to a suspended sentence are the defining characteristic of
the sanction. The sentence is not usually suspended in vacuo. It was customary in the past,
and since the arrival of Section 99 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 it is obligatory, to
specify the conditions of compliance within a bond. The bond may be secured by
monetarysureties but this is not absolutelynecessary. But the bond should specificallystate
the conditions of compliance and the period for which the sentence is to be suspended.
The conditions attached to the suspended sentence might provide specifically for the
offender to attend a drug or sex offenders programme. But the primary conditions of a
suspended sentence are that the offender keeps the peace and is to be of good behaviour.
These latter conditions may not be tied into any therapeutic intervention at all and thus
may be viewed not as rehabilitative in themselves but as limitations which are placed upon
the offender to control his/her lifestyle.
The question whether the suspended sentence has proven to be a successful rehabilitative
sanction has not been addressed in this study but the literature from other jurisdictions on
the rehabilitative effect of the suspended sentence is not encouraging. Nonetheless, Irish
judges were specific in their reference to this rehabilitative purpose in their extensive use of
the sanction.
The judges were critical of the various agencies charged with the execution of the
suspended sentence particularly the role of the D.P.P and the Gardai in failing to make
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