Irish Minister for Justice and Equality Alan Shatter has announced the establishment of a working group to conduct a strategic review of penal policy. This follows recommendations of the Thornton Hall Project Review group for an all-encompassing review of penal policy, including investigation of issues such as sentencing policies, alternatives to custody and support for rehabilitation. The Report of the Thornton Hall Project Review Group was published in July 2011 –
click here to read the full report.
The new working group will be chaired by Mr Michael Whelan and will make recommendations on improvements to the penal system. Minister Shatter stated that, “I believe this review will help address the future needs of the prison system and will map a way forward for the ongoing reform of that system and the future development of penal policy in this State”.
On the 20 September the Irish Penal Reform Trust’s Annual Lecture was held in Dublin’s Kilmainham Gaol. The event was chaired by Mr Justice Paul McDermott and entitled Sentencing Guidelines – the work of the Sentencing Council. Mr Justice Colman Treacy of the High Court of England and Wales delivered the lecture, which covered topics such as the history of sentencing guidelines and how they are used. He also gave a comprehensive overview of the work of the UK’s Sentencing Council.
Meanwhile, an article in the Irish Examiner has revealed that St Patrick’s Institution for young offenders is Ireland’s most violent jail. In 2011 there were 367 assaults on prisoners by other inmates at the prison. This figure equates to one third of all assaults occurring in the Irish prison system last year. There were also 48 assaults on prison staff by inmates in St Patrick’s, once again equating to 30% of such assaults throughout the system as a whole.
In James, Wells and Lee v. The United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights has held that indeterminate prison sentences breach prisoners’ rights. Such sentences were introduced by the UK in 2005, but were recently abolished by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act. Despite the abolishment, prisoners previously given an indeterminate sentence remain in the prison system as the abolition does not apply retrospectively. There are currently 6,000 prisoners in England and Wales who do not have a release date, and 3,500 of these have already served their time but do not know when they will be released. Under the indeterminate prison sentence system, prisoners must prove to the Parole Board that they have successfully completed rehabilitation programmes and are therefore ready to be released. However, completing such programmes can be difficult due the unavailability of such rehabilitation programmes.
This lack of available courses was a key factor in the ECtHR’s finding. The Court held that there was a violation of Article 5(1) (right to liberty and security of the person) of the European Convention on Human Rights as “the failure to give timeous access to the relevant courses rendered the applicants’ detention after the expiry of their tariffs arbitrary”.
In R(NM) v. Secretary of State for Justice, the UK Court of Appeal has held that faults in a prison sexual assault investigation did not breach Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment). The Court held that the investigation had satisfied the investigative obligation placed on a state under Article 3. An investigation had been conducted under the prison’s violence reduction strategy rather than by means of a formal investigation. The victim’s intellectual disability of had also been overlooked during the investigative process and therefore the prison’s disability policy was not properly followed. The Court of Appeal held that there had been no systemic failure although the investigation was flawed. Lord Justice Rix stated that, “I have no reason to think that, in a situation where there is and can be no complaint in this court that the state has abused its preventative obligations…there was any breach by the state pursuant to article 3 arising out of NM’s vulnerabilities”.