Banged up: the counties that top the jail list...

Limerick found to have highest rate

PEOPLE from certain Irish counties have an almost six times greater chance of finding themselves locked up than people in other counties.

Those with a Limerick address are by far more likely to end up in jail, an analysis of Irish Prison Service data has revealed.

The two counties that topped the list – which is devised per capita, based on committals per 100,000 population – in the two years examined, 2014 and 2015, are Limerick (561) and Co. Longford (528).

Donegal is most law-abiding

By contrast, the chances of someone with a Donegal address winding up in jail were a fraction of those who live in Limerick.

In Donegal, the prison committal rate per 100,000 of population was just 97, making it – by this measure at least – the most lawabiding county in Ireland.

Other counties with very low rates of imprisonment for residents included Meath, Mayo, and Leitrim. Dublin, with by far the largest population, was almost identical to the national average with a rate of 286 incarcerations per 100,000 people.

All told, more than 12,700 people were sent to jail in 2014 with that figure rising to almost 13,500 during 2015. The numbers are remarkably low in some counties, with just 83 people from Leitrim imprisoned over the two years. By contrast, Longford, with only a slightly bigger population, had 412 of its residents sent to jail.

The national average was 286 committals per 100,000 of population, with several counties, including Laois, Wexford, Kilkenny, Galway and Dublin, all in and around that figure.

Cork, the other big population centre in Ireland, had a far higher rate of imprisonment. For every 100,000 people there, 392 are sent to prison each year, with almost the same figure applying to Co. Waterford, at 391.

For those who do end up in prison, the chances of them serving a lengthy sentence appears to have dropped considerably over five years. In 2010, there were 344 prisoners given a jail term of five years or more. However, by the end of 2015, that had dropped to 240. The number of people sentenced to life – all convicted murderers – has remained fairly constant however, over the years.

In 2015, there were 19 prisoners given life, compared to 25 the year before. Numbers have generally been in the low 20s for the past decade.

Most of the people sent to jail however, get much shorter sentences of under three months.

Meanwhile, there has been a massive rise in the number of women going to prison.

In 2001, fewer than 1,000 women were sent to jail, but 15 years later, that figure had risen to almost 3,000. More than 550 people were imprisoned for murder attempts, threats to kill, and serious assaults – 41 of them female.

Overall, the vast majority of those sent to jail were from either Ireland, the UK, or Europe, with European Union citizens making up 95% of the total.