Press Statement

Preasráiteas

21 June 2022

Go to release: Prison Re-offending Statistics 2019

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (21 June 2022) published the results of its most recent estimates of prison re-offending.

Commenting on the release, Felix Coleman, Statistician in the Crime and Criminal Justice Division, said: “Prison re-offending estimates are calculated using data provided by the Irish Prisons Service and An Garda Síochána's PULSE reporting system. In addition to updates of three-year and one-year re-offending rates and tables from 2018, this publication also introduces statistics showing the geographical breakdown of prison re-offending in Ireland.

In 2016, 62% of individuals released from custody were linked to a re-offending incident within three years of their release. The data also indicates that younger age groups of individuals released from custodial sentences are much more likely to re-offend, with more than four-fifths (82%) of individuals aged less than 21 at the time of sentencing re-offending within three years of release. In contrast, just under 30% of prisoners who were over 50 years old re-offended within three years of release.

Re-offending rates have fallen over time whether one looks at three year or one year windows for re-offending following release from custody. Just less than 45% of individuals released in 2019 re-offended within one year of release, compared to just over 54% of individuals released in 2011 who re-offended within one year of release. The one year estimate of custodial re-offending for 2019 also shows a drop of three percentage points when compared with the same measure for re-offending for 2018 (just under 48%).

There is also a difference in re-offending rates between males and females depending on the sanction type they received in court (custodial or fine sentences). Although most individuals released from custodial sentences in 2016 were male (92%), more females re-offended within three years (70%) than males (62%). In contrast, when looking at 2019 one-year fine sentence re-offending rates, males (47%) were more likely to re-offend than females (42%).”

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