The announcement that a criminal justice statistics unit is to be set up within the Central Statistics Office (CSO) is timely. It follows the publication earlier this week of two reports from an Expert Group on Crime Statistics and coincides with the latest quarterly figures from the Garda Síochána and the release by the CSO of its second Victimisation Survey.
This latter survey shows a great variation in the levels of reporting of crime to the Garda Síochána, from 90 per cent in the case of car theft to under 40 per cent in instances of vandalism. Some of the non-reporting results from victims not regarding the crime involved as sufficiently serious but about a third is attributed to their belief that the Garda either could not, or would not, do anything about it. Furthermore, according to the CSO, one in four victims of crime have a poor or very poor opinion of their local gardaí. This is double the number in the population at large.
The weaknesses in the accuracy of crime reporting revealed in this survey underline the contents of the two reports from the Expert Group on Crime Statistics. One of them - a minority report - was particularly trenchant in its criticisms of existing Garda statistics on crime, questioning their "quality, reliability and accuracy". It questioned also the level of co-operation the Expert Group had received from the Garda in preparing its report. The majority report did not go so far, but the fact that it called for more research into the Garda PULSE system - the computer network used to collate figures - suggests that it found the method of compiling statistics less than satisfactory.
All of this casts doubt on at least some of the Garda's crime statistics. It undermines also the credibility of ministerial welcomes for reported reductions in headline crime and corresponding opposition hysteria in response to reported increases. Apart from very serious offences like murder, we simply do not know how accurately the Garda figures reflect the actual levels of crime in Irish society. Their veracity is marred also by the arbitrary division of crimes into "headline" and "non-headline" categories, with the latter only reported when prosecutions ensue. "Non-headline" crimes include possession of knives and dangerous driving. The CSO's analysis provides a more accurate reflection of crime levels but, on its own admission, the findings have a narrow focus and exclude certain categories.
Criminal justice policy must be based on reliable data about the extent and causes of crime. Otherwise it is driven by hysteria about the latest shocking incident, with no examination of the broader context and the consequences of new policy initiatives.
Good work in this regard has been done by the Department of Justice and the National Crime Council. The decision to establish a special statistics unit, independent of the Department of Justice and the Garda, with the force mandated to supply it with its data, is a welcome one. It must be followed through with adequate resourcing.