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A Brief History Of The Irish Prison Service
The Irish Prison Service is actually one of the oldest public institutions in the country, dating from the decision in 1854 to establish a three-man board, the Convict Prisons Board, to manage convict prisons in Ireland. The Board's first chairman and director was Sir Walter Crofton and the other two members were Captain Knight and Sir John Lentaigne.
Convict Prisons Board
The first prisons to be managed by the new Board were Mountjoy Prison (opened in 1850), Spike Island (1847) and Smithfield in Dublin. Prior to the establishment of the Convict Prisons Board, prisons in Ireland constituted county jails, debtors prisons, bridewells, convict prisons. The burden of maintaining these prisons led to increasing pressure on central government to take over the administration of prisons. Furthermore, the emergence of powerful penal reform pressure groups towards the end of the eighteenth century, led by such influential figures such as John Howard and Elizabeth Fry, provided the catalyst for change which was eventually to lead to the centralisation of the administration of prisons in Ireland in 1877.
General Prisons Board
The creation of the General Prisons Board in 1877, under the General Prisons (Ireland) Act, represented a desire by government to bring together under a single statutory board powers that previously were distributed among the Convict Prisons Board, an Inspectorate of local prisons and innumerable local authorities or grand juries. The new Board assumed responsibility for 38 local county prisons, 96 bridewells and four convict prisons.
When the General Prisons Board was dissolved in 1928 (General Prisons Board (Transfer of Functions) Order 1928 and its functions transferred to the Department of Justice, there were eight prisons and a Borstal operating in Ireland.
Department of Justice
Over the next fifty years or so very little happened in terms of organisations change in our prisons with the exception of the introduction of the Prison Rules, introduced in 1947.
The prisoner population contracted during these years reflecting a static Irish demography - low birth rates, high emigration and very low levels of reported crime. As the service contracted prisons at Galway, Tralee, Drogheda, Waterford and Kilkenny were shut down. In 1956, the Borstal Institution in Clonmel was closed and the young offenders were transferred to St. Patrick's Institution in Dublin. In fact, by the end of the year the only prisons in use were Mountjoy, St. Patrick's Institution, Portlaoise and Limerick.
The safety valve that was emigration declined the prisoner population started to increase in the late 1960s. In 1960 the daily average number of prisoners in custody was 461 by 1970 this had increased to 750. Ten years later that number had increased to1,215. Crime rates increased dramatically during this period, from, on average, less than 20,000 recorded indictable offences each year in the 1960s to over 100,000 in 1983. The growing pressure on the penal system was exacerbated by the outbreak of conflict in Northern Ireland and brought about the need to make special provision for subversive prisoners.
In 1985, a new prison, Wheatfield Prison, located in Dublin was added to the prison estate. At the time it was the country's first purpose-built prison since Mountjoy Prison opened its door in 1850.
" Independent Prisons Agency"
In 1996, the Government approved the establishment of an independent prisons agency. A small expert group consisting of people outside as well as inside the Public Service was appointed to work out all the detailed aspects of the proposed new prison administration. The group published its report, Towards an Independent Prisons Agency, in 1997.
A Director General and a Prisons Board comprising 12 members under the chairmanship of Mr. Brian McCarthy were appointed in 1999. The Director General was given responsibility under the Public Service Management Act for the day to day management of the prison service.
Today, the Irish Prison Service has responsibility for 14 prisons and places of detention; an annual budget just under 300 million euro; a staff of 3,400, and daily average prisoner population of 3,100.
Sources:
- Carey, T. 2000, "Mountjoy, The Story of a Prison", Collins Press,
- O'Donnell, I and E. O'Sullivan, 2003, "Imprisonment and the Crime Rate in Ireland", The Economic and Social Review, Vol 34, No. 1, Spring, 2003 pp. 33-64
- Aylward, S. 2002 "The Irish Prison Service, Past, Present and Future - A Personal Perspective" in P. O'Mahony (ed), Criminal Justice in Ireland.
- Dublin: Institute of Public Administration.
- Department of Justice, Annual Reports on Prisons and Places of Detention
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