A failure to provide effective accountability mechanisms would result in "a wedge of distrust and resentment being driven between the police force and those communities most adversely affected," the crime forum heard yesterday.
An independent ombudsman was needed to deal with complaints made against gardai to increase public confidence in complaints procedures, according to Prof Dermot Walsh, of the Centre for Criminal Justice at the University of Limerick.
Prof Walsh said that, while gardai were subject to criminal law in the same way as other citizens, that "often proved a blunt tool in calling individual officers to account for offences committed in the course of their law-enforcement duties".
A detective who extracted a confession from a suspect in custody by "hitting him a few slaps in the face" would be unlikely to be convicted of the offence, unless he made an open admission.
"The offence will be investigated by the detective's colleagues. The only witnesses, apart from the victim, will be police officers who are notoriously reluctant to give evidence against their colleagues in such circumstances," the professor said.
"The decision on prosecution will be taken by the DPP, who has a track record of refusing to prefer charges against police officers in such cases unless the alleged offence is serious and the evidence is particularly compelling. "Juries are notoriously reluctant to convict in such cases, particularly where the victim has a criminal record or was being investigated for an offence which has attracted substantial public revulsion."
An officer was less likely to be prosecuted and convicted than an ordinary citizen. In low-income, high-crime communities, such experiences could rapidly undermine respect for the Garda and the law, providing an environment conducive to crime, said Prof Walsh.
Civil law offered better prospects for delivering accountability where police engaged in abuse practices or adopted policies deemed to be unacceptable. However, the action in tort was only suitable for abuses of police power which resulted in serious injury or a gross deprivation of liberty. "Once again the situation which is most likely to fall through the net is the unemployed suspect with a low educational attainment and long criminal record, who has been beaten up in police custody by officers trying to extract a confession to a crime which they know he has committed," he said.
The Police Complaints Procedures were inadequate and the conflict of interest presented by the police investigating themselves was not offset by the Garda Siochana Complaints Board, said Prof Walsh.
In any one year, almost 50 per cent of complaints were ruled inadmissible.
Ministerial accountability to the Dail was also inefficient in providing democratic police accountability, largely because the Garda Commissioner was vested by law with operational control of the force.
???i around the country and disciplinary action in individual cases.
"In other words the minister passes the buck on to the commissioner in the very situations where the need for accountability and openness is most acute," he said. Assistant Garda Commissioner Joe Egan said Prof Walsh had looked at the areas of weakness, but had also accepted that this State enjoyed extremely good police community relations.