Statistics are still unreliable as big swings may reflect reporting or recording changes and not real change, writes Nuala Haughey
Garda figures issued yesterday showing reported crime is on the decrease come with a couple of health warnings.
For a start, the 7 per cent drop in serious crime for the first half of this year compared to the same period last year follows a two-year period when annual crime figures rocketed.
Reported serious crime rose by a total of 40 per cent from 2000 to 2002. There was an 18 per cent increase in headline crime in 2001 compared to the previous year and a 22 per cent overall rise in 2002. In both years, there were dramatic increases in serious assaults and sexual assaults.
The provisional statistics for the first quarter of this year offer some reassurance at least that this worrying upward trend may have peaked. They show decreases of 30 per cent in assault causing harm, of 25 per cent in sexual assaults and of 16 per cent and 34 per cent in relation to the two categories of rape-related offences.
However, a 46 per cent rise in the offence of unlawful carnal knowledge - usually sexual relations with a minor - is a cause for concern.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, yesterday urged caution in interpreting the provisional headline figures, saying they needed to be dis-aggregated in order for them to make sense.
He noted that such global figures include bicycle thefts and that an increase in such crimes is regarded as numerically equivalent to murders or bank robberies.
Despite his own caution, however, the Minister asserted that the overall drop in recorded crime in yesterday's figures should not be described as small, but "significant".
With annual crime figures rising since the introduction of the Garda IT system, Pulse, the media and public opinion believed crime was out of control and spiralling, he said.
"Now over two quarters [of this year] it's on the way down again. I can't predict with certainty where it will go over the next six months, but it does show that we shouldn't lose hope and that we should have confidence in the Garda Síochána," he said.
Experts have suggested that at least some of the increases of the past two years are due to the fact that Pulse has led to more comprehensive recording of certain types of crime, such as public order offences.
However, better recording methods, or even increased reporting of crime, cannot explain away the dramatic increases last year and the previous year in serious assaults, sexual offences, drug offences and larcenies.
For example, in 2000 1,988 serious assaults were recorded. This rose to 5,688 last year. There were 1,700 recorded sexual offences in 2000 and 3,147 in 2002. These increases occurred despite enhanced Garda resources in recent years, as well as more prison places. Since then we have seen a U-turn in the Government's election promise to recruit 2,000 additional gardaí.
Instead, the force will be increased by around 300 to a total of 12,200 by the end of next year, a statistic which will do little to assuage public concerns about drink- and drugs-related violence on our streets.
In an effort to get a more focused picture of the extent of crime in society, Mr McDowell has set up an expert group which will assess the methods of presenting and gathering crime statistics.
One of the members of this group, Dr Ian O'Donnell from the Institute of Criminology in UCD, has himself cautioned that major swings often reflect reporting or recording changes, rather than real change. He has also pointed out that it is particularly difficult to interpret trends when the only data available is from the Garda.
Alternative sources, such as crime victimisation surveys, would allow a more rounded picture to emerge.