BY LIAM CORCORAN

A total of 537 people with home addresses in Galway city and county were sent to Irish prisons last year, new figures show.

Statistics from the Irish Prison Service’s annual report for 2011 show that 3.8 per cent of the country’s total prisoner population of 13,952 inmates gave an address in Galway city or county as their home last year.

The figure is a one person increase on the number of prisoners listing Galway as their home address on Irish Prison Service records in 2010 and makes Galway the county with the fourth highest number of new prisoners in the country.

The numbers for 2011 and 2010 show a sizeable rise from the figure of 359 Galway residents jailed in 2007.

The most common crimes committed were road and traffic offences, with 130 Galway people going to jail for such crimes in 2011. Other frequently recorded reasons of committal were assaults, attempted murder, public order offences and theft.

Three Galway people were sentenced to prison sentences for murder in 2011, with one of those offenders in Castlerea prison and the other two in the Dochas women’s centre.
 

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.