Just under one-third of people who received a probation order in 2017 re-offended within a year, according to the most recent figures published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

This was a small decrease compared with 2016, with younger people and those who served probation orders for public-order offences more likely to re-offend.

The figures also show that almost half of individuals who were placed on probation in 2015 committed at least one re-offence within three years for which they received a court conviction.

Traffic convictions included

The estimates are calculated using data provided by the Irish Probation Service and an Garda Síochána's PULSE reporting system. The CSO says that the inclusion of all court convictions linked to road-and-traffic incidents gives the figures greater coverage.

CSO statistician Felix Coleman said that there had been a small decrease in the one-year probation re-offending rate between 2016 and 2017 – from 31% to 29%.

Just over 40% of probationers aged below 18 at the time of receiving a probation sanction re-offended. In contrast, just 8% of those who were over 65 re-offended.

Almost 40% of those on probation for public-order offences re-offended within a year.

‘Under reservation’

Almost half of all re-offences by adults under 25 are carried out in two offence categories: public order (22%); and road and traffic offences (21%).

Controlled drug (14%) and theft-related offences (14%) account for more than a quarter of the re-offending offences.

The figures on re-offending are categorised as ‘under reservation’ – meaning that the quality of the statistics does not meet the standards required of official statistics published by the CSO. This is due to issues with PULSE data.