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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 1:32 am
Time: 1:32 am
Results for alternatives to incarceration (ireland)
1 results foundAuthor: Irish Prison Service Title: Community Return: A Unique Opportunity. A descriptive evaluation of the first twenty six months (2011 - 2013) Summary: In October 2011, the Probation Service, in partnership with the Irish Prison Service, commenced a pilot Community Return Programme. The Community Return Programme is an incentivised early release scheme introduced in line with the recommendations of the Thornton Hall Project Review Group. All participants have demonstrated their willingness and ability to co-operate with the prison regime and to engage with the therapeutic services available. Community Return is a novel and unique initiative combining unpaid work for the benefit of the community with early release and resettlement support. In its development, no equivalent or similar initiative could be identified anywhere in the world and none had been reported in academic reviews or criminal justice literature. In the Community Return Programme, qualifying prisoners may be released early from their custodial sentences, with a period of unpaid community work as a condition of their incentivised, structured and reviewable temporary release. The Community Return Programme pilot, between October 2011 and April 2012, proved to be very successful in assessed compliance with the conditions of the release and behaviour, and in terms of the very low level of reconviction of participants. The success of the pilot led to the programme being mainstreamed. The aim of this research study is to assess the operation, impact, and effectiveness of the Community Return programme through a piece of descriptive and evaluative research. The study cohort comprised all 761 Community Return Programme participants between October 2011 and December 31st 2013. A mixed methods approach was used in the study, as well as analysis of anonymised pre-existing data on participants held by the Irish Prison Service. Questionnaires were completed by relevant Irish Prison Service and Probation Service personnel. The Community Return Programme participants were predominantly male, with females comprising approximately 6% of the population on the programme. 77% of the population were aged between 21 and 40, with the greatest concentration in both genders (43%) in the ten year age group between 21 and 30 years. - 62% of Community Return Programme participants were from Leinster. 43% of all participants were from Dublin. Of the total population who commenced the Community Return Programme, approximately 53% were located in three major urban areas (Dublin, Cork and Limerick). - Of the 761 offenders who commenced the Community Return Programme, (90%) were serving custodial sentences of less than six years. 45% were serving sentences of between two and four years imprisonment. The average sentence length was 3.2 years - 40% of Community Return Programme participants had been convicted on drug offences. 16% had been convicted in respect of offences including assaults and related offending. 9% were convicted of offences including robbery and related offences. - 38% of participants were released from open prisons, Shelton Abbey and Loughan House, while Mountjoy Prison was the closed prison with the highest release rate at 11%. The high percentage of prisoners released onto the Community Return programme from open prisons reflects the Irish Prison Service Incentivised Regime policy in practice and the pre-release role of open prisons. - Of the 761 participants who had commenced the Community Return Programme between October 2011 and December 31st 2013, 548 had completed it and 108 were still in progress. 88, approximately 11%, breached conditions of the Community Return Programme and were returned to custody. Almost 89% had either successfully completed their Community Return Programme or were still working on the Programme. Of those participants (n =233) released during the first year of the programme, 91% had not been committed to prison on a new custodial sentence in the period up to the end of 2013. - 9,580 weeks of Community Return Programme work, comprising 201,056 hours unpaid work, was completed by participants. Based on the national minimum wage in 2014 for an adult worker of L8.65 per hour, this represents L1,739,135 worth of unpaid work completed for the community by Community Return participants. - The most common types of work undertaken by Community Return Programme participants were landscaping/gardening, painting/decorating and renovation, with participants preferring work which allowed them to see 'a job through from beginning to end rather than constant switching between jobs'. Supervisors reported that Community Return Programme participants performed positively in their work and displayed a positive attitude towards the work. - Over 80% of community based Probation Officers attributed Community Return Programme participant compliance primarily to a desire to avoid returning to prison. In some cases this was complemented by secondary motivational factors such as participant enjoyment of the work experience, appreciation of their early release or, a sense of commitment to the Community Return contract. - Access to social protection entitlements ('social welfare') was the single biggest difficulty faced by Community Return participants involved in this study following their release, affecting one third of participants. According to participant feedback, difficulties appear to have stemmed from an apparent lack of a shared understanding regarding access to income maintenance payments by Community Return participants. - The Community Return Programme participants identified particular benefits in the Programme, including the structure and routine which aided re-integration, the work ethic and self-esteem developed, their positive profile in working in the community and the learning of work skills transferable to employment. Challenges included coping with the strictness and frequency of the signing-on conditions, difficulties accessing entitlements and payments, and time and costs in travelling to worksites. - The Community Return Programme helped participants stay out of trouble according to some of them, by keeping them occupied, providing positive supports and a starting point to build on, particularly in the early stages after release, when, according to research here and abroad, newly released prisoners are particularly vulnerable to relapse to anti-social behaviour, companions and offending. The Community Return Programme has potential for further expansion and detailed recommendations are outlined in Chapter 7. Details: Longford, IE: Irish Prisons Service; Dublin: Irish Probation Service, 2014. 52p. Source: Internet Resource: Probation Service Research Report 5: Accessed February 12, 2015 at: http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Community_Return_Study_Report_v3_9.pdf/Files/Community_Return_Study_Report_v3_9.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Ireland URL: http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Community_Return_Study_Report_v3_9.pdf/Files/Community_Return_Study_Report_v3_9.pdf Shelf Number: 134613 Keywords: Alternatives to Incarceration (Ireland)Community ServiceEarly ReleaseProbationProbationsWork Programs |