Saoirse Brady

The From Punishment to Prevention: Poverty, Inequality and Pathways into the Irish Criminal Justice System report finds that poverty, inequality, and socioeconomic disadvantage at community level increase a person’s risk of coming into contact with the criminal justice system in Ireland.

Launching the report today, the IPRT has warned that without urgent investment in communities, the cycle of criminalisation will continue.

Drawing on Irish data, international evidence, and participatory research with people directly affected, the report identifies clear pathways that can lead people into criminalisation: childhood poverty, school exclusion, trauma, housing instability, unmet mental health and neurodevelopmental needs, substance use, and the criminalisation of poverty-survival behaviour.

The report also highlights significant gaps in Irish justice and socioeconomic data that limit the State’s ability to fully understand and respond to these dynamics.

Saoirse Brady, IPRT’s executive director, said: “When people simply cannot make ends meet, what others see as a choice to go down a path of criminality is often not a choice at all – but a survival tactic.

“At a time of rising living costs, housing pressures, and record prison overcrowding, this report highlights the need for a shift away from punishment and towards prevention.

“Instead of continuing to pour money into an overstretched criminal justice system and expanding the prison estate, the government should commit to a redirection of justice investment to provide secure homes, better access to healthcare, an adequate income, alternative education supports and youth work opportunities.

“Many of these measures would prevent people coming into contact with the criminal justice system in the first place.”

Clare O’Connor, author of the report, added: “Poverty does not automatically lead to criminal justice contact. But our research shows that it can increase exposure to the conditions in which criminalisation becomes more likely, especially when combined with systemic failures and structural inequality. These pathways are often layered, cumulative and intergenerational.

“During the course of our research, we observed a clear pattern – criminalisation is shaped not only by poverty, but by how poverty intersects with gender, ethnicity and place.

“If we are to reduce harm and prevent criminal justice contact, policy responses must address the upstream drivers – income inequality, inadequate supports, housing insecurity and discrimination – while resourcing the supports that allow people and communities to thrive and live with dignity and security.

“And to do that we need to address gaps in data so that any steps taken in future are evidence-informed and effective.”

The report contains a number of recommendations relating to investment in prevention and social supports; redirecting savings from reduced imprisonment into communities most affected by deprivation; expanding alternatives to custody; and reducing reliance on imprisonment and increasing accountability.

It concludes that criminal justice policy cannot be separated from social policy, and that addressing poverty, deprivation and exclusion is central to preventing criminal justice contact and building safer communities.

Ms Brady concluded: “People cannot continue to be penalised for the failures of the State to provide for them in the first place. We cannot allow futures to be consistently shaped by the collective and individual trauma of social disadvantage and adverse experiences.

“The government needs to make a clear choice: continue to invest in systems that fail to prevent people falling into criminality or invest in the social services people and communities need. If we are serious about safer communities, the answer is prevention – not more punishment.”