merrion street

Vivian Geiran, Director of the Probation Service welcomed the publication of the fourth Central Statistics Office (CSO) Report on Recidivism in the Probation Service for the 2010 cohort.
The CSO Report describes variations in recidivism as they relate to the original community based sanction imposed, gender and age of offenders, category of offence and subsequent re-offence.
Commenting on the publication of the report, Vivian Geiran said: “This study focuses on a cohort of offenders from 2010, and shows the recidivism or re-offending rate of this cohort after a 3 year period. These categories of offenders were given sanctions by the Courts, such as a Probation Order or a Community Service Order. The results show that almost 63% of offenders given one of these alternative sanctions by the Courts in 2010 had not re-offended after 3 years.”
He went on to add: “This compares well with the previous study, while the overall recidivism rate increased marginally from 37.3% to 37.5%, it is important to note that the profile of offenders in this year’s study has changed quite significantly from previous studies. In previous studies there had been a large majority of offenders subject to Probation type supervision in the study cohort. In this year’s cohort there has been a major growth in the number of offenders subject to Community Service Orders leading to a near-equal split in the study population. This change in offender profile may, in some part, explain the slight increase in overall recidivism level as Community Service is imposed as a higher tariff sanction and direct alternative to a custodial sentence.”
The study also highlighted the following:
Re-offending rates were lower for females than males, with almost 70% of females not reoffending in the period.
Recidivism rates, in most cases, were seen to decrease as the offender’s age increased.
Public order offences are the most common original offences, with public order and theft being the most common offences on reconviction.
Vivian Geiran commended the work of the Central Statistics Office in their continued partnership with the Probation Service in undertaking these valuable studies, adding that the reports provide an overview of community supervision outcomes which will inform the work of the Probation Service in helping make communities safer.
The report is available on the CSO website www.cso.ie