Any explicable reason why Judge Martin Nolan isn't under greater scrutiny by media + the state?

Leaving aside the judge in question for the moment, there's the inconvenient fact that our prison system is now at overflow capacity. It's all well and good sating public demand for heavier sentances, but if there's nowhere to put them, and I think the judiciary is acutely cognisant when they sentance.

Now, many will say we need more prisons, and that might be true. Currently, our prison system is both at overflow and our largest ones from the Victorian age. They are recidivists factories. But, the Governor of Mountjoy has actually come out and said several times we should look at capping the prison population and to consider are we imprisoning the right people, and for the right amount of time. That's food for thought even if you want to call the Governor of our largest prison a Johnny softc*ck on crime.

If one takes a look at similar sized countries like Finand and Norway, their prison population is under 3k in both instances, we're heading towards 5k and coudl well breach that number next year. But what is notable about both Nor. and Finland is that their recidivism rate is markedly lower. That could partly be chalked up to societal reasons (both countries have a lot of sh*tty people as well believe it or not), but also if we're to be frank, because their focus is on reducing recidivism above all things - and the conditions are built around rehabilitation and reintroduction to society.

That's going to be massively unpopular in certain quarters, and I realise there is an unlimited appetite among many for the maximum sentance to be applied in the worst possible conditions when they read newspaper headlines on Facebook. It's also a multi-billion euro project if we're to be serious about reorientating the prison system towards preventing further criminal behaviour - also something Irish people are unlikely to have an appetite for.

The other alternative is leave things as they are, roll the dice and hope for the best that the people going into our prisons don't become worse people than when they went in. Even the notion of building bigger prisons in the hope it will magically work doesn't seem to wash. If simply imprisoning more people for longer worked, the US would be a crime-free paradise. All the evidence points towards super-prisons being crime factories however. New York State is moving towards shutting down Rikers Island because it's such a mess and an advanced finishing school for criminal behaviour.

This site is interesting to cross-compare rates of imprisonment and other related stats versus other European countries. We imprison at a rate of 90 people per 100k of population. Factoring in that our remand/pre-trial detainees are generally a lower part of the prison population than others (similar to the UK) - along with the UK, we tend to imprison people more than other Western European countries, but less than Eastern Europe which tend to have significantly higher rates of incarceration.

The facts are of course that Nolan's sentencing is largely in line with the guidelines if it wasn't his sentences would be appealed more often also Judge Nolan gets the majority of criminal cases hence why it seems his sentences are lighter when in fact they aren't.

succinct