Sentencing Policy
Dail Éireann — 2024-06-20
============================================================

David Stanton (FG), Cork East

This question concerns a model of community court approach operating in the US and the UK, especially in midtown New York and Red Hook. When I was the chair of the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, we did a lot of work on this issue. It proved to be very effective in dealing with low-level crimes, including misdemeanours, shoplifting and so on. It also had the backup of sociologists and psychologists to help people be diverted away from crime. Has the Department examined this approach in more detail recently?

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2024-06-20/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:53:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2024-06-20