Travellers ‘over-represented’ in Irish penal system
Reading time: 1 minute
Newly collected data has revealed that Travellers are significantly over-represented in the Irish penal system, The Irish Times reports.
Despite making up just 0.6 per cent of the Irish population, Travellers make up 10 per cent of the male prison population and 22 per cent of the female prison population.
The figures were presented to a Travellers in Prison conference in Dublin, addressed by minister David Stanton and representatives from the Irish Prison Service and Probation Service.
Vivian Geiran, director of the Probation Service, said the over-representation of Travellers in the penal system had gone “under the radar” because of a lack of reliable data collection until last year.
Ms Geiran said its own data showed that “almost 10 per cent of the people under probation supervision are Travellers”.
However, she said there needed to be “a lot more research” into why.
Share this article:
Subscribe to our newsletter to not miss articles like this one:
SUBSCRIBE
