Happy new fear
Murderer Carney among 387 lags on temporary release... to ease crisis
ALMOST 400 prisoners were given temporary release on New Year’s Eve – as the Irish Prison Service tried to deal with growing levels of overcrowding.
The IPS provided a detailed breakdown of the 387 people that were let free from jail on New Year’s Eve.
They included a convicted sex offender serving a sentence in the Midlands Prison.
Evil killer Stephen Carney, who is serving a life sentence at Shelton Abbey open jail for the murder of his girlfriend Amanda Jenkins, was among 139 prisoners let out for Christmas.
Another convicted murderer Paulo Nascimento, who blasted Grainne Dillon, 24, with a shotgun as he robbed Jury’s Inn Hotel in Cork where they both worked, was also given temporary release.
Two men guilty of homicide offences, who were both serving sentences of between five and ten years in Castlerea Prison in Co Roscommon, were also given temporary release, data shows.
SENTENCES
The largest category of prisoners granted release from their sentences were those guilty of controlled drug offences where 100 offenders were set free with conditions.
There were also 74 people serving time for theft and related offences, 52 convicted of road and traffic offences, and 36 sent to jail for fraud, deception, or related offences.
In more serious categories of crime, there was temporary release for one individual from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin who was serving a three-tofive-year term for kidnapping or related offences.
There were 30 individuals granted TR after being found guilty of attempts or threats to murder, assaults, and harassment or related offences.
Others on temporary release included 21 prisoners in jail for dangerous or negligent acts, eight involved in robbery, extortion, or hijacking, seven convicted of weapons or explosives offences, and six criminals imprisoned for offences against government, justice procedures, or for the organisation of crime.
Of the 387 people that were on temporary release on New Year’s Eve, the largest number, 99 in total, were serving sentences of between one and two years.
There were also 24 people who had been given prison terms of between five and 10 years, but no prisoners with sentences of longer than that.
Among the factors considered were the nature of the crime
The Irish Prison Service figures also showed that 17 of the temporary release inmates were jailed for less than three months, with 83 in jail for sentences of between three and six months.
A large majority of those on TR were men with 321 male prisoners as compared to 66 women.
However, men vastly outnumber women in the prison system by a rate of around 20 to one based on the latest official figures from the IPS.
The data also revealed the jails with the highest rates of temporary release were Mountjoy with 117 and Cork Prison with 52.
There were also three men on TR from high-security Portlaoise Prison, 49 from the women’s Dochas centre in Dublin, and 17 from Limerick’s female prison.
No prisoners from Arbour Hill, which is used to house most of the country’s most serious sex offenders, were on temporary release and it is almost never granted to such prisoners.
A spokesman for the Irish Prison Service said they had to accept all prisoners committed by the courts and had no control over numbers arriving to jail on a day-to-day basis.
He added: “[Last Monday, there were] 4,854 in custody across the prison estate or 108% of the overall capacity. The total bed capacity of the Prison Service is 4,514.” Temporary release was one of the ways in which capacity was managed with each prisoner being considered on a case-bycase basis and with “the safety of the public paramount” in any decision. Among the factors considered were the nature of the crime, the individual’s previous criminal record, the potential threat the person posed and their likelihood of reoffending.