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The Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, Alan Shatter TD, today welcomed the publication of the Probation Service Recidivism Study 2007-2011.

Speaking on its publication, Minister Shatter said "This is the first time there has been such an assessment of the impact of non custodial measures on rates of re-offending. The results are interesting with the study showing that almost 63% of offenders who were given an alternative sanction by the Courts in 2007 had not re-offended after two years".

The study’s findings show that the recidivism or re-offending rate was 37.2% for the particular cohort of offenders who were under probation supervision in the two years after their supervision ended. Males made up 86% of the total population and had a higher recidivism rate than females. Public order offences were the most common original offence and these offenders had the highest recidivism rate. Recidivism rates were seen to decrease as the offender’s age increased, and re-offending was twice as likely to occur in the first rather than the second twelve months of the two year period.

Minister Shatter added "This study has established reliable recidivism data on offenders under probation supervision and on community service orders and considers variations in recidivism as they relate to the type of original order, gender and age of offenders, category of offence and subsequent offence. I welcome this study and its positive assessment of the effectiveness of non-custodial sanctions".

The Minister also commended the work of the Central Statistics Office in facilitating the undertaking of the study and the manner in which they worked in partnership and understanding with the Probation Service. Commenting further, Minister Shatter said "I am particularly pleased that the Central Statistics Office was able to assist the Probation Service in completing this study. The value of their work is that it provides a clearer overview of community sanctions outcomes which will better inform the work of the Probation Service in helping to make our communities safer. I look forward to reading such evidence based material on an annual basis."

The report is available on the Probation Service website at

Note for Editors:

Although the Probation Service has made major progress in the production of management information there has, until now, been an absence of research on recidivism of offenders under the management of the Probation Service. The Central Statistics Office and the Probation Service therefore began a process of exploring the possible synergies between their extensive datasets. Data on offenders who had been given probation supervision or community service in 2007 was used to conduct the study published today.