Every few years there is a crime crisis, resulting in rushed legislative changes, yet more "Operation Xs" of An Garda Síochána, demands for changes to the criminal justice system, the cumulative effect being to coarsen the grain of society and to deepen inequality, yet with no effect on the scale and intensity of criminality, writes Vincent Browne.
We do not have a crime crisis. Yes, the number of murders so far in 2006 is higher than previous years but low by international standards, and because the murder rate starts from a low base it is susceptible to maverick, occasional circumstances that have little or no societal significance. Aside from murders there has been no escalation in the scale of violent crime, the headline crime figures have remained in the 80,000 to 105,000 range for over 20 years and the sensible measures available to remedy or reduce the incidence of criminality remain ignored.
Yes, some of the recent murders have been absolutely horrific, notably those of Donna Cleary, aged 22, who was shot dead at a party in Coolock, Dublin on March 5th, that of Baiba Saulite on November 19th, of Alan Cunniffe, the Kilkenny postmaster on December 8th, of Anthony Campbell, the plumber, on December 13th and of Aidan Myers in Dundalk. And of course the loss of any life - innocent or otherwise - is a tragedy. But let's get a grip on this.
Of the 63 murders committed this year (these probably should be characterised as homicides), 17 arose from personal or domestic circumstances, 15 seem to have been gang-related, nine arose in the context of rows, eight of the murders were of foreign nationals and it is difficult to decipher (for a lay person at least) what the motivation was in these cases, seven of the murders I cannot categorise, six arose in connection with the commission of crime (other than gangland crime), and one was of another category - this was the murder of Denis Donaldson.
Leaving aside the murders that arose in uncertain circumstances (seven), nearly half of the other murders arose from either personal/domestic factors or rows, about a quarter from gangland feuds, and the remainder were murders of foreign nationals and crime related.
Presented, like this, the murder rate hardly suggests a "threat to democracy" as one alarmist reporter on RTÉ characterised them.
There is certainly a reason to be concerned about the easy resort to murderous violence in rows either in public or in domestic settings. But this will not be resolved by changes in the criminal law. Many of these are certainly related to the consumption of alcohol.
It is likely that 21 of the 63 murders were related to drugs in some way - possibly more if some of the uncertain murders and the murders of foreign nationals are taken into account.
We have failed utterly to deal with the drugs phenomenon, as has every other society, bar, possibly, Iran, Malaysia and Singapore. And the reason for the failure has to do with the unique aspect to the drugs phenomenon: most of the "victims" are accessories to the crime. No matter how skilled a police force may be, it is not possible to deal with this phenomenon, especially when there is such a demand for drugs. The only thing that can be done is to minimise the demand, and that can be done in relation to heroin abuse by relieving the conditions of deprivation that are so closely associated with that drug. We have known about this for at least a decade and done damn all about it.
As for the other drugs, why do we bother? If dumb-heads want to get out of what they call their minds on coke, why not let them at it? Just as we do with those of us who from time to time get out of our minds on drink? We could pull the rug on a great deal of gangland crime, including murders, by taking the drug business out of the criminal justice arena, but we are not even prepared to discuss this.
We could also defuse gangs by taking people out of the circumstances in which they feel that the only way they can get a bit of recognition, power and a sense of self-worth is by being part of a criminal fraternity, because other opportunities are closed to them because of our social system.
The recent demands from the Garda associations that the Special Criminal Court be used to deal with gangland cases suggests that a great many of the Garda are divorced from reality. Did they not notice that the Special Criminal Court nowadays hardly deals with any other form of crime, now that the subversives have largely gone out of business?
The demand that the laws of evidence be changed to allow senior gardaí to give their opinion on whether a person is a member of a gang, as has happened in trials of persons accused of being members of unlawful organisations, also misses the point.
That law worked for about four years (1972-1976) and since then hardly anybody has been convicted on the basis of such evidence.
And the message of all this is: get real.