Labour's Penal Policy has cost them my vote..

dermot_sheehan

sparkling sea wrote: »

While I completely agree that Labours proposals for change bearly scratch the surface with regard to changing sentencing practices, I dont understand why you feel Labours proposals are taking us backwards.

Ireland has a strong orientation towards custody and a largely underdeveloped scheme of community alternatives, this proposal seems to recognise the problem and is inline with annual recommendations of the Irish Penal Reform Trust.
Although we are mid-league in an international context in terms of our stock of prisoners, the flow of people into prison places us considerably further up the international league. The disparity between these two figures is due to our reliance on short terms of imprisonment and suggests that we are a country with great potential for the use of non-custodial sanctions as a means of reducing the prison population.
Three fifths of all those sentenced to imprisonment in Ireland are sent to prison for periods of under six months. The vast majority of those are sentenced to custody for non-violent offences against property or road traffic offences. Also significant proportion of committals relate to fine default. This would suggest that greater use can be made of community sentences without seriously jeopardizing public safety and would make fiscal sense.

Labour would appear to be asking judges to use the available alternatives to imprisonment and were this doesn't happen (evidence from other countries says it should happen) a written explanation needs to be given. As an alternative to imprisonment should be the punishment in all cases, very few letters of explanation will be needed, so it shouldn't be time prohibitive.
Its very difficult to change and progress if judges will not explain there decisions. Furthermore we can't afford to waste money sending people to prison, especially when these people should not be their in the first place.

I think the policy that first time non-violent offenders should not get custody is a good one. I think Labour's way of implementing it is flawed though.

The problem for labour is that judges retain discretion and impartiality for sentencing within the confines of the law. A judge can sentence a person to probation or 12 months imprisonment for theft of €10 for example.

Custody would be a harsh punishment for a first time offender, there are some District Court judges though who do use the maximum of their sentencing powers for petty offences. It is unfair on the offender as if brought before one judge they might get custody while another could let them away with the probation act.

Labour could advocate amending the law so that first time offenders charged with theft can not get custody, this would not have the difficulties I outlined in my past post.

The problem is labour are requiring judges to certify in writing the reasons for sending someone to custody. The problem is that legally makes both the certification and the justification for the certification fundamental in determining whether the offender is subsequently legally detained.


So for example if I'm representing a client, and a judge fails to certify in writing the reasons he is chosing custody, I can get the client released by way of a habeas corpus challenge to their detention. The state will end up paying the cost of that challenge.

Furthermore even if the judge does certify the reasons for custody, and I feel there was no evidence to support the reasoning the judge came to, I can judicially review the judge and have his certification quashed by the High Court, again with the state paying.

Finally, if the judge certifies, has good reason to certify, but there is a clerical error, I can again have the detention warrant quashed.

It's for these reasons the courts act only allows for a final order from a judge in district court proceedings to be had regard to, to stop these kind of challenges.

And in any case this requirement will not stop judges from sending someone down for stealing a penny sweet. All it will do is require them to have the paperwork in order before doing so.

sparkling sea

Mr. Presentable wrote: »

Go on. Link me one incident of a person who went to prison for non-payment of a small fine. You will find they all went for contempt of Court

In reality, the jail term is imposed for ignoring a court order (to pay the fine), rather than for the original offence but if a person is in court because they can't afford to pay a fine, they won't be magically able to pay it because a Judge orders them to. Its ridiculous that and any judge with an ounce of sense should realise that they are criminalising people because of anomalies that existed in the system and not for the good of anyone or in spirit of social cohesion. The only purpose prison serves in these cases is turning poor people into outsiders and making quite alot of people feel alienated from the very body that is meant to deliver justice.

Here is an example of the ridiculous situation that has existed in Ireland which I have taken from another site - It has been reported that the average cost of keeping inmates in prison has fallen to €77,222, a drop of 17%. However, that still works out at €212 per day in prison. Take again the example of the individual who fails to pay for their TV licence: the State loses €160 in revenue for the licence. It must then bear the cost of prosecution, which could reach a few thousand euros. Say the defendant is punished at the extreme end of the scale, receives the maximum fine of €1,000 and is jailed for 10 days for non-payment.

Not including the cost of prosecution, the State is at a loss of €3,280. With the cost of prosecution included, the full cost will be around €5,000. In 2009, 60 people were jailed for this offence and 3,500 were jailed in total for non-payment of fines. Obviously, there is a financial incentive for using the alternative provisions of the Fines Act in future.

It may be called contempt of Court but is the Court really abiding by the terms of our social contract - I think not

sparkling sea

gabhain7 wrote: »

The problem is labour are requiring judges to certify in writing the reasons for sending someone to custody. The problem is that legally makes both the certification and the justification for the certification fundamental in determining whether the offender is subsequently legally detained.


So for example if I'm representing a client, and a judge fails to certify in writing the reasons he is chosing custody, I can get the client released by way of a habeas corpus challenge to their detention. The state will end up paying the cost of that challenge.

Furthermore even if the judge does certify the reasons for custody, and I feel there was no evidence to support the reasoning the judge came to, I can judicially review the judge and have his certification quashed by the High Court, again with the state paying.

Finally, if the judge certifies, has good reason to certify, but there is a clerical error, I can again have the detention warrant quashed.

It's for these reasons the courts act only allows for a final order from a judge in district court proceedings to be had regard to, to stop these kind of challenges.

And in any case this requirement will not stop judges from sending someone down for stealing a penny sweet. All it will do is require them to have the paperwork in order before doing so.

I am still a bit lost as to what the problem is and I have to say your scenarios may in theory be true but in practice especially at District Court level they are unlikely to hold up if Judges do as they are meant too, give alternatives to prison, adopting not only Labours recommenations but also those of the Law Reform Commission's who also state that District Court judges give written reasons before sentencing someone to a custodial sentence. Further the Fines Act of 2010 will take away the need for immediate payment and monies can be paid over a given period of time