WITH so many politicians identifying crime as a major election issue, and early opinion polls placing it in the top three concerns of voters, one might have expected the campaign to have thrown up some worthwhile debate among the major parties.
Instead, the topic has been allowed to rest, being disturbed by only the occasional prod from Fianna Fail's "zero tolerance" placard.
There are two principal reasons for this. First, the major parties are broadly in agreement on what to offer voters. Second, hard work by gardai and community activists has significantly hindered the major drug gangs' activities over the past year. Some of the major drug criminals have been apprehended or have fled and drug sales have been made more difficult.
This has been accompanied by a reduction in most serious crime in the early months of the year, and gangland murders have fallen from the peak marked by the killing of Veronica Guerin, last June.
While the Government was criticised for introducing tough anti-crime measures only in response to crises, some of the measures such as the Criminal Assets Bureau - have proved valuable. It has increased pressure on the criminals and helped dissipate the fear that events were controlling the Government, rather than the other way around.
The manifestos show almost all of the parties but particularly the FF/PD grouping subscribe to the Michael Howard approach to tackling crime - prisons, police and more prisons. The FF/PD alliance has resulted in closely aligned crime policies, sharing faith in zero tolerance and extra cells.
The Rainbow parties are less united. All three offer an extra 1,000 gardai, but Fine Gael promises an extra 400-space prison - not yet agreed with its partners. Fine Gael has also promoted ideas such as further restrictions on the right to silence and increased detention powers for the gardai - Democratic Left and Labour say they are wary of these policies.
If the Rainbow returns to Government, there will be plenty of arguing on these points. History suggests that unless there is a crisis, Labour and Democratic Left will win the arguments.
Fianna Fail's refrain has been zero tolerance. Initially, it meant no tolerance of any crime. However, in the face of not very searching questions about the need to prioritise Garda resources and the value of an officer's discretion, Fianna Fail began to change the meaning.
Halfway through the campaign, zero tolerance became a commitment to concentrate on more serious crime, "as soon as possible". By last weekend, it meant zero tolerance of drug dealers. One Fianna Fail TD said it was about the big dealers, not the small ones.
At this stage, it seems little more than a commitment to continue Operation Dochas, the Garda's anti-drug effort in Dublin.
Manifestos always show their authors' true interests where they make cash commitments. All parties would claim to be "tough on crime and the causes of crime", the latter taken to include extra money for drug prevention and treatment, and extra resources to be spent in deprived areas. But the big cash commitments are inevitably attached to tax cuts and extra prisons and gardai, rather than the amount to be spent on new sports clubs or job schemes for the poorest estates.
The Progressive Democrats are least sympathetic towards drug addicts, and most mentions of drug treatment in their manifesto is in the "prisons" section. Fianna Fail has made more effort in this area, promising improved treatment facilities, but has not explained how this will be done with the PDs so committed to limiting spending.
The Rainbow parties are more eloquent about the need to help the less well off, as a way to tackle the causes of crime. But they do not tie themselves to significant financial commitments, other than to such programmes as have already started.
The lack of thinking behind much of the crime policy offered is exemplified by the recurring promise to build a "custodial drug treatment centre" - i.e. a jail for drug addicts - and send drug abusers to it from the courts and from other prisons. If sentencing is made as severe as promised, and early releases curtailed, such a jail would soon be a US-style monstrosity with 2,000 addicts inside, and builders outside adding extensions.
In the way they have debated crime, the main parties have perpetuated the perception that criminals are somehow "not like us".
A large proportion of criminals are dangerous and incorrigible, and separating them from the rest of society is justified. But as the latest survey of prisoners in Mountjoy jail in Dublin shows, there is little mystery about who they are or where they come from.
Interviews by Dr Paul O'Mahoney with more than 100 prisoners revealed that more than half came from just six areas of Dublin, areas of obvious economic and social deprivation, and high unemployment. A high proportion of the prisoners came from large families, and in 44 per cent of cases at least one brother had been in the jail before them. Eighty per cent left school before the age of 16, 88 per cent were unemployed before going to jail.
And - for those who see prison as the ultimate deterrent - they had an average of 14 previous convictions, and had already been sent to jail 10 times. Nor did this represent their whole criminal effort. When O'Mahoney asked them how many times they got away with a crime, 70 per cent said they got away with more than 10, and half of these said they got away with more than 100.
O'Mahoney's study of prisoners in the State's largest jail indicates that much of our crime is due to a relatively small number of people, from identifiable homes in identifiable areas, facing the same economic hardships and responding in the same way - becoming drug addicts and committing crimes. Now and then the State catches them, sends them to jail, they get out and offend again.
The Mountjoy study and a glance around the bleakest parts of Dublin, Limerick or Cork - the places which offer up successive generations to our jails - should be enough to persuade anyone that crime levels could fall with more spending directed to specific areas.
The Government has made some effort, providing funding for projects suggested by community groups in 11 designated zones. It is a small offering, but an offering nonetheless, towards what could be done. The Department of Justice, in its own document on "Tackling Crime" said "the link between crime and disadvantage is real and is, in the Department's view, an issue that has to be faced up to by all sections of society".
The way crime has been discussed during this election campaign suggests that day is some distance away.