Home > Probation re-offending statistics 2020.

Central Statistics Office. (2024) Probation re-offending statistics 2020. Cork: Central Statistics Office.

External website: https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p...


Key findings

  • Just over one-quarter (27%) of offenders who received a probation order in 2020 re-offended within a year, a rise of 2% when compared with the equivalent rate for 2019 (25%).
  • Over one-third (37%) of adult males aged under 25 years who received probation orders in 2020 re-offended within a year of receiving probation. In comparison, one-quarter (25%) of young adult females re-offended during the same period.
  • There were increases between 2019 and 2020 in the re-offending rate of people serving probation for offences related to Assault (+5%), Controlled Drug (+4%), and Road & Traffic (+4%) related offences.
  • Regionally, the highest level of re-offending (31%) involved probationers from the South-West (Cork and Kerry) region. In the Dublin region, where the highest number of probationers lived (1,058 of 3,478), 27% of probationers re-offended within a year.
  • The highest number of probation orders were issued in 2020 to people who committed offences related to Controlled Drug offences (605 of 3,478). Just over one-fifth (23%) of these people were convicted of a re-offence within a year of receiving their probation.
  • Just under two-thirds (65%) of the re-offending by people who received a probation order in 2020 took place in just three of the sixteen offence categories: Public Order (28%), Controlled Drug (21%), and Theft (16%).
  • During a longer period (three-years) after receiving a probation order in 2018, almost half (45%) of people committed at least one offence for which they received a conviction.

Re-offending rates: Overall, probation re-offending estimates indicated a slight increase in re-offending by probationers between those that received a probation order between 2019 and 2020, although the one-year re-offending rate for 2020 (27%) was the second lowest re-offending rate measured since 2008 when the first estimates of probation re-offending were calculated. The year-on-year increase in re-offending between 2019 and 2020 was mostly due to a rise in the re-offending of people who received probation for offences relating to Controlled Drug (23%) or Road Traffic (22%) related offences. In both these groups, there was a four percentage point increase in the re-offending rate compared with 2019. The analysis also shows that the re-offending levels amongst adult males under the age of 25 years (37%) remains significantly higher than the equivalent rate for adult females (25%) of the same age.

Public Order (12%) and Controlled Drug re-offences (13%) were least likely to result in a custodial sanction for a re-offence. See CSO website figure 2.6 and table 2.5.

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