User talk:Mjlynch58/sandbox

There are several issues in this article that require explanation to be more useful.

1. A number of the data citations to this articles do not link to the specified pages. A more general link to the data on Irish Prisons can be found here: http://www.irishprisons.ie/index.php/publications/annual-reports

2. Clarification of the discussion of the inmates sentenced and serving prison time seems to be in order. For example, in 2013, 13,055 persons were sentenced to prison, BUT the prison population is much smaller -- the total number of persons in custody was 4,099 on November 30, 2013 (see link above). There were 8,663 prison committals for less than 3 months, which explains some of the discrepancy between the number of persons sentenced to prison and the number of persons in prison custody (this population would turn over several times during the year). See also # 3.

3. This is also an issue when comparing prison data across nations. For some nations, imprisonment is reserved for those convicted of felonies and sentenced to 366 or more days of incarceration (for some nations, this is 2 years or more). For Ireland, this does not appear to be the case, and offenders may be sentenced to any length of time in prison. Because this is true, the rate of imprisonment for Ireland will be inflated because the proportion of inmates serving time in Irish prisons who are there for less than one year makes up 89.5% of inmates. In this sense, the Irish prison population appears to include persons who, in other nations, would be sentenced to jail, and thus not included in prison population data. The entry needs to address this point. Thus, the Irish imprisonment rate for those with sentences of 1 or more years would appear to be much less than reported.

4. Having looked at some of the data, I cannot explain these issues sufficiently, and someone with specific expertise in the Irish prison system would need to comment on these issues. For example, from the Irish prison report for 2013, it states that 89.5% of inmates were sentenced to terms of less than 1 year. However, the report also notes that 9.2% of prisoners were serving life sentences, and 8.5% were serving sentences of 10 years or more. 89.5 + 9.2 + 8.5 = 107.2%, AND excludes inmates with sentences between 1 - 9 years and 364 days.

Mjlynch58 (talk) 17:05, 22 June 2014 (UTC)