New report reveals a Garda force in crisis

Publishing the results of its two-year examination of the Garda’s investigation of crime, the Garda Inspectorate was quick to point out that its work was not an investigation that sought to find wrongdoing or corruption.

Instead its objective was to examine the Garda’s approach to how crime was examined with a view to identifying shortcomings and recommend reforms.

However, the near 500-page report paints a picture of a police force in crisis, hampered by a lack of resources and a heavy workload. Those difficult conditions are compounded by some unhealthy practices, incompetence and poor management.

Crime Prevention

The report concludes while the top priority of the Garda should be on crime prevention, this area of policing appeared to have slipped down the force’s list of priorities.

There was no published policy for preventing crime.

Community gardaí proved very effective yet numbers had reduced in all divisions, and in some areas there were no community officers.

Antisocial behaviour legislation was being under-utilised. There was little evidence that the most serious orders banning repeat offenders from particular locations were being applied for by the Garda via the courts.

Victims

The inspectorate found that while there were many dedicated members of the Garda who performed very well, the treatment of victims needed to be significantly improved.

The force’s performance in keeping victims informed with progress in investigations was especially poor. Letters that should be sent out to keep all victims up to date with progress in their cases were dispatched in just 42 per cent of cases .

Divisional policing

The inspectorate found the force was continuing to post newly-promoted senior officers to positions far from home. Those members made long commutes “arriving sometime on a Monday and departing sometime on a Thursday”.

It was clear many did not want to be in their new posts, and the gardaí they were managing became aware of this very quickly.

The inspectorate said these officers were known as “travelling superintendents”. It suggested that because they believed they would not be in their posts very long, and in most cases expected to return to Dublin, there was a lack of any real engagement with their work.

This is a key finding because it mirrors what the Morris tribunal found when it examined corruption in the Donegal Division; newly-promoted officers assigned to the division not engaged because they believed they would be moving on soon and corruption never tackled as a result.

Resource deployment

There were only 1,127 gardaí in a 13,000-strong force assigned to specialist units yet 500 members were based in Garda headquarters.

There was limited progress on the civilianisation process of non-frontline duties.

In some places, such as the Kildare division, there was no community policing. Yet in others 19 per cent of gardaí were assigned to it.

There were huge variations in the level of personnel committed to different types of policing across the country.

There was a chronic lack of vehicles, impacting everything from response times to 999 calls to high-visibility patrols and the investigation of crime.

The move from a mostly Monday to Friday roster period for detectives to six days on, followed by four days off, was not meeting the force’s needs.

First response

While computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems were working in some parts, gardaí in most places did not work under such a system. The system records all 999 calls that require a Garda response.

When CAD systems are used a picture emerges over time of where and when resources are needed and what parts of a police force are busiest or least active; vital data on which the planning of other forces is based.

The Garda had sought funding for a CAD system but it was not successful. As a result, records of 999 calls and Garda responses were being maintained in an ad hoc manner, on paper, in the many non-CAD areas. Vital information from witness or victim callers was often not logged.

The inspectorate found 999 calls were not graded in a way that would prioritise the speed and level of response needed.

Domestic violence

There was little oversight into how domestic violence calls were responded to. In 10,373 cases of recorded domestic violence calls studied by the inspectorate, a suspect was arrested and taken to a Garda station in 247, or 3 per cent, of cases. Many of these arrests were for outstanding warrants.

In some places only 63 per cent of calls resulted in the creation of a Pulse data record and in 43 per cent of cases calls were not categorised as crimes.

In many cases when people with injuries who had clearly been subjected to assaults were not willing to make a statement, the case was not recorded as a crime.

When victims had consumed alcohol they were often told by gardaí to take time to consider their next course of action. If they did not make a statement the attack on them was not recorded as a crime.

When tourists complained of being victims of crime those offences were often not recorded because gardaí believed the victim would take no follow-up actions.

When minor offences occurred they were often not recorded as crimes to avoid the commencement of a formal investigation.

Incident recording

In many cases the response time to calls were so long victims had left the scene by the time gardaí arrived.

Frequently incidents were not recorded on the Garda’s Pulse database for between two and six months after a crime.

For some feud-related incidents, initial offences were not recorded until subsequent related crimes were committed.

Only 2 per cent of burglaries were recorded on Pulse on the day they occurred, with the average for all crime types just 14 per cent.

In up to 67 per cent of cases, crimes were not classified correctly and in some crime categories inadequate information to determine the accuracy of the classification was a feature in 42 per cent of records.

Assaults that resulted in broken fingers or teeth were often recorded as minor rather than assaults that caused harm.

Some 28 per cent of criminal damage cases were incorrectly classified.

In some cases when robberies occurred involving the use of force against a person, they were classified as “theft from the person”, such as pick-pocketing.

Some categories of burglaries were grossly misclassified. For example, a thief using a fishing rod or broom handle to push through a letterbox for the purposes of taking handbags, car keys and other items should be classified as burglaries. But some 97 per cent were classified as something more minor.

Crime management

The rate of reclassification of crimes, at 8.5 per cent, was much higher than the international average of 4 per cent. The inspectorate does not accuse the Garda of massaging crime figures but in 83 per cent of reclassifications crimes were downgraded.

Burglaries accounted for 39 per cent of all reclassified crime. And in 98 per cent of burglaries reclassified, the crime was downgraded.

These trends were captured in a study of data from January 2011 to May 2012; a time when there was significant political pressure on senior Garda management to reduce burglary rates which were increasing as all types of recorded crime was falling.

In another case a sexual assault was reclassified as a non-crime, a smash and grab on a vehicle in which a window was broken and a handbag taken was reclassified as lost property.

The inspectorate found that any garda having the power to reclassify a crime without informing any third party and without the need to state a reason was out of step with international policing practices.

Investigating crime

The inspectorate found a culture within the force of detectives investigating what was deemed to be serious crime and uniformed members investigating less serious crime. In reality this was not the practice. In other countries uniformed police officers respond to crime but the substantive investigation was carried out by specialist units.

Across the State between 94 and 96 per cent of crime was regarded as less serious, with serious offences accounting for between 4 and 6 per cent of all crime committed.

In Ireland the workload of detectives varied massively; from nine investigations per detective per year in one district to 55 crimes per year per detective in other districts.

There were 2,200 detectives in the 13,000-strong force, some 700 of whom had had no formal detective training. Others had worked up to 10 years without training. The majority of the 5,000 gardaí who had joined the force since 2005 had never received training in how to conduct an interview.