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NEW FIGURES RELEASED by the Council of Europe have revealed how it costs the Irish state €2,773.38 to house a juvenile prisoner for one day.
The stats, contained in the council’s annual penal statistics, showed how this was by far the highest figure across Europe and compares to €897.65 in Northern Ireland, €303.48 in England and Wales and a Europe-wide average of €283.58.
Acting executive director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, Fíona Ní Chinnéide, said there are a lot of things to consider when calculating the cost of providing detention facilities for children.
“I think you’re looking at an economy of scale. Even for a very small number of people, it needs to be fully staffed. Even if there is one or two people there, there needs to be adequate staffing.
It’s also reflective of the services, be they mental health, speech and language therapy or education facilities.
The Irish system requires about €189 to house an adult prisoner each day. In comparison, it costs nearly €500 per prisoner per day in San Marino while Georgia spends as little as €6 a day on each person in its jails.
The Council of Europe is an international organisation focused on protecting human rights, democracy, rule of law in Europe and promoting European culture. The report, published yesterday, deals with figures compiled in 2014. The council said the average costs would not have deviated significantly in the last two years.
Its figures also revealed the average age of an Irish inmate was 34. The only country in the EU with a lower average was France, standing at 33.8 years. The report detailed how a little over one in 10 Irish inmates are serving life imprisonment. The EU average is 3.5%.
Serious offences
A relatively high proportion of prisoners serving sentences in Ireland had been convicted of assault and battery (13.8%), rape (5.1%) and other sexual offences (6.2%). This compares to Europe-wide averages of 9.3%, 3.9% and 3.7% respectively.
Of western European countries, Ireland was among those with the lowest proportion of foreign inmates, standing at 12%. This is compared to 71% in Switzerland.
Council of Europe secretary general Thorbjorn Jagland said: “The drop in the overall number of people in prison in Europe is welcome. Increasing the use of alternative sentences does not necessarily lead to higher crime rates but can help to reintegrate offenders and tackle overcrowding.”
Suicide
In 2015, foreign inmates were 10.8% of the total prison population, down from 13.7% in 2014. In central and eastern European countries, this proportion continued to be very small.
After natural causes, suicide was the most common cause of mortality in prisons, representing 25% of all deaths. One in every four suicides was committed in pre-trial detention.
The total amount spent by the prison administrations in the 44 countries that provided this kind of information was €21 billion.
During 2015 there were 1,239,426 individuals under the supervision of agencies in charge of alternative measures to imprisonment such as probation, community service, curfew orders or electronic monitoring.
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I’m sure they could do without sky TV, recreational rooms, and all the non essentials. Prison is supposed to be “hard time” no… Save state a fortune and obv the taxpayer ..
Shirley. Most of the “Juveniles” concerned in this piece are not in Prison but in Oberstown, under the detention of the Dept of Education. When St Patrick’s was still open and run a as Young Offenders Institution it’s costs would have been similar to that of the Adults. But since St Patrick’s closed and Oberstown became the de-facto detention centre prices have gone up due to the nature of the confinement.
Start charging them for the cost of their stay. Start by making their stay as uncomfortable as possible, get rid of all luxuries. Start by making them work during their stay (breaking rocks, chain gangs etc) Prisons are far too much like hotels, make them a bad place to get sent to and you will get fewer reoffenders. Once a person has violated someone else’s “human rights” they should forfeit any right to their own.
@Jane Alford: As soon as you mention forfeiting human rights, then human rights no longer exist.
But i agree. Prison should not be funland. They should have to earn any luxuries. And it should be harder to keep said luxuries than earn them.
Nope, I disagree. Human rights, as with respect, need to be earned.
The majority of the cost is probably the people ‘checking up’ on them for a minute and leave a bill for several hundred.
How about tot up the total cost of their “stay”
Motivate them to avoid reoffending
If they reoffend, it gets deducted from their social welfare or additional taxes on any salary they earn x% per week when they get out again until they paid off their hotel with medical expenses bill.
I’m all for rehabilitation and attempts to prevent reoffending but it the person involved doesn’t give a dam, you’ll never turn them around and yet we’re sucking up a ridiculous cost daily.
It would be cheaper to put them up in a hotel, but wait a hotel wouldn’t have a play station or X box for them!!!!
@raymond flynn: it might be less enjoyable to put them up in hospitals, these surveys should be held on the cost of what costs people in hospital, highlight the fact that non of which ” are fully staffed” menus do not exist for most patients nor is there any recreation what so ever!
Totally agree JHO. Elderly sick people are being treated worse than prisoners
Somebody’s making money.
Pays to have good political contacts.
How in the name of God can it cost that much.? Someone on the take here
The disparity in cost between us and other countries is criminal and should certainly bear scrutiny. The system is an absolute joke. Lowest public transportation subvention in Europe but then we rack up costs like this. Great corrupt little country to do business in.
@Seth Cheffetz: It never fails to blow my mind how corrupt this country is and how inept those in charge are. There is absolutely no plausible explanation as to why our cost is nearly 3 and a half times more than Northern Ireland. How can they possibly justify that?
The cost is so high because there are probably not enough economies of scale, the ratio of guards to gougers is too close.
Build large modern prisons that are easier to manage and stop letting all these criminals commit 20 offences before they see the inside of a cell.
Badly need to install cameras in these centres
Locking up one juvenile in jail: €2773 Peace of mind he/she is not on the street: Priceless.
Pay other European countries to take our prisoners. They’ll come home after a few years fluent with a new language.
@Jack Bowden: Aisen or South American would be better, maybe they might not come home at all :)
Why does out cost that much? A bed and three meals a day should only cost them about 50 quid
Simple Q. Why does EVERYTHING in Ireland cost multiples of the cost in other countries??
Said it before. . . Poorer people out there with hearts of gold helping these lot. Heart breaking.
We need to follow Georgias lead so, when it comes to serial repeat offenders at least. Theres no chance of someone with 50 previous convictions being “innocent”
Cheaper to drown the degenerates
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