Sir, - All Gardai are crime prevention officers, irrespective of their day to day employment on this, George Maybury (February 14th) and the present writer are agreed. But how is a job description to be realised in the service of the community? George Maybury again returns to the secondary aim of police, "the successful detection and prosecution of crime."
The commitment of the representative bodies to the principle of crime prevention died with the departure of the founder members in the 1950s. Already the garda in uniform was, the Garda Review complained, being "relegated to a position of insignificance . . . tolerated in a secondary role."
After decades of neglect, is it possible to turn the Garda Siochana around, to bring individual gardai to accept the first principle as the lodestar of their profession? How do present attitudes conform with the Constitution, Article 40:3:2? "The State shall, in particular, by its laws protect as best it may from unjust attack and, in the case of injustice done, vindicate the life, person, good name, and property rights of every citizen.
As a statutory body representing ranks with the key supervisory role in the Garda Siochana, potential leaders and educators in society, AGSI carries a proportionate share of the responsibility to protect and vindicate. Are the constitutional guarantees of citizenship either protected or vindicated by filling the courts and prisons with the victims of State failure to prevent crime?
The costly crime detection mentality is so deeply entrenched that the mere reorganisation of structure, anticipated in the proposals of the Strategic Management Initiative, will be difficult to reconcile with the constitutional imperative. Yours, etc.,
Upper Kilmacud Road,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.