"Serious crime figures last year highest since the early 1980s", thundered a front page headline in this newspaper last Thursday morning, That headline followed the content and tone of the Crime line stat ion, RTE. Its news broadcasts of the previous evening focused exclusively on what is perceived to be an "increase in serious crime", including a rise in sexual crimes. The rest of the coverage of the Garda 1995 crime report, published on Wednesday, was in similar vein.
What is going on here? Is there a national need to be told again and again by the media as well as by John O'Donoghue and Liz O Donnell, that the country is in the grip of a crime wave, that crime levels have reached unprecedented proportions, that the crime problem is out of hand?
The Garda figures showed that the total number of recorded crimes in 1995 was 102,484. This compares with the 1994 figure of 101,036, a rise of 1 per cent. Some crime wave. But, the crime brigade contend the overall figures disguise the rise in the level of "serious" crime and that, anyway, so many crimes go unreported that the figures don't tell the true picture. That latter point may prove more than would suit the agenda of the crime brigade.
The crime figures do indeed mask the real extent of the crime phenomenon. For instance, the figures for perjury (two), misprision of felony (zero) and all kinds of corporate crimes do not get into the crime statistics at all. Indeed tax evasion, the one form of crime most commonly committed by the middle classes, does not even get categorised as a crime. Under the 1983 Finance Act, the maximum sentence if convicted on indictment is five years in prison a fine of £10,000 or both.
It is clear the recorded incidence of sexual crimes is a small fraction of actual sexual crime. For this reason any change in the recorded incidence of such crimes is a thoroughly unreliable indicator of any change in the incidence of such crimes.
But for some categories of crime, the recorded figures are likely to reflect the real incidence of such crimes. These relate mainly to serious crimes against property burglary, larceny of motor vehicles and larcenies from motor vehicles. Also to serious crimes against the person murder, manslaughter, and the felonies of wounding and other acts endangering life.
The record of serious crimes against the person is likely to be reliable because of the obvious evidence there usually is of such crimes. Serious crimes against property are also likely to be recorded because such property is likely to be insured and claims cannot succeed without these crimes being reported to the Garda.
INDEED the rise in recorded incidence of crimes against property is likely to overstay significantly the actual rise in such crimes over a period of, say 20 years, because of the insurance factor. Looking again at the crime statistics for 1995 against this background, it would be wise to exclude sexual crimes completely for the purposes of comparing the statistics with previous years.
A lot of mileage has been made about the apparent increase in the number of crimes against the person, 1,327 for 1994 to 1,663 for 1995, a 25 per cent rise. The fact that even the 1995 figure is considerably down on levels pertaining over several years in the past decade has been ignored. But even comparing 1995 with 1994, if one excludes sex crimes (because of the unreliability of those data), the total increase in this category is a mere 66 crimes.
If a relatively trivial category of crime against the person (misdemeanours) is excluded, then the total increase in crimes against the person is virtually zero. So much for "serious crime figure last year highest since the early 1980s" and the balderdash from the RTE newsroom.
It is true that the number of recorded murders in 1995 (41) represented a significant increase on the 1994 figure (25). But, as argued here two weeks ago, the murder rate in this State is so low in absolute terms and compared with the murder rate in other developed countries (our murder rate is a mere fraction of most other countries) as to be statistically vulnerable to freak occurrences in other words it is possible that a single deranged murderer could effect, a significant impact on the overall murder statistics.
It seems true that the doubling in the number of men murdered in 1995, as compared with 1994, was due almost entirely to professional assassination, arising from gangland "wars". But is it not the case that the Garda has been less assiduous in curtailing and investigating such crimes? Certainly there were no high profile Dail assurances that the "resources of the State will be mobilised to detect the murderers"
The simple fact is apart from this freak murder phenomenon, there is no evidence from the crime statistics of any increase in serious crime, or of a crime wave or of the country being in the grip of crime or even of the country being in the grip of crime bosses. This is not to deny that there is a crime problem, only to suggest that the characterisation of the crime phenomenon has been wildly exaggerated and that the available evidence has been wilfully ignored.
Just two further points arising from the crime statistics.
That it has taken seven months to produce these statistics is far from satisfactory why could it not be done within one or two months after the end of the year? But even more disappointing is the carelessness with which the statistics have been produced.
FOR instance on page 50 of the report, it is stated in one table that there were 33 women and eight men murdered in 1995. On another table on the same page it is stated that there were eight women and 33 men murdered. On page 46 it is reported that there were two reported or known offences in the category of falsification of accounts. On page 62 it is stated that there were 2,894 known offences of falsification of accounts.
This is hardly reassuring that those charged with dealing with the crime problem even know what the problem is.
And at the bottom of pages 48 and 49 there is a chart dealing with crimes pending from previous years dealt with in 1995. This shows that there were still nearly 14,000 detected crimes which still had to come before the courts at the end of 1995, which were committed before 1995 began. This represents almost half the total of detected crimes in any year.
What is it about our system of justice that cannot get to grips with this? And we now propose to deal with the problem of crime committed while on bail, not by correcting the startling inadequacy in our prosecution system, but by imprisoning people for crimes they might commit.