Crime Hysteria

Vested interests have turned a manageable problem into a crisis. By Gene Kerrigan and Helen SHaw. Additional reporting by Mark Brennock

1. Report from the Commissioner

DAY AFTER DAY THE EVENING HERALD HAD . been relentlessly slamming home the message: we are drowning in crime, the teenage huns are at our throats. It was clear from the paper's coverage that the Republic, and Dublin in particular, had been subjected to an unceasing and ever-increasing amount of crime.

On April 2 Garda Commissioner Larry Wren went to the podium at the conference of the Association of Garda Serrgeants and Inspectors, in Tralee. He thanked the Associaation forihe invitation, expressed sympathy at the killing of Garda Frank Hand, told the audience about his visits to country stations and praised them for the handling of the Reagan visit. After a few words on training and a discreet reference to the difficulties gardai had experienced in the previous twelve months (Shercock and Tralee), he noted that it had also been a successful year. Although crime figures had increased over a period of years "we were managing to reduce the rate of increase, through the allooCation of more members to the beat and the introduction of Community Relations Schemes," The Commissioner. then urrveiled his big news. "Through a continuation of these procedures, 1 am happy to be able to inform this conference that we had for the first time in many years a decrease of 2,6% in crime last year, as against the figures for the year 1983."

It wasn't a big decrease, but it was an apparently signifiicant one, It wasn't shock news, it had been known for some time, But the Commissioner and the gardai were entitled to their moment of satisfaction.

That night the Evening Herald headline was "Update the.

Gun Law - Gardai." The pot was to be kept boiling, the Herald would remain on the crime bandwagon. The Commmissioner's speech was unquestionably of relevance to a newspaper which had so regularly devoted its front page to the crime problem. Anytime the garda statistics or any other statistics showed an upturn the Herald could be relied upon to use the figures as a basis to wail about the torn fabric of society. This time, although other elements of the media featured the Commissioner's statement prominently, the Herald ignored it. The Herald was using crime for its own purpose and anything which didn't serve that purpose was not news, would be suppressed,

The debate on crime is dogged by such cynicism. The real problem of crime, the real evidence of its origins and causes and of measures which have a chance of relieving the problem, are all buried or distorted by vested interests for whom crime is a useful phenomenon,

A recent NESC report noted that while there are "incenntives for various groups to emphasise the high level of crime" or to exaggerate that level, there is no organisation in whose interest it is "to argue against such claims, or to articulate a more enlightened view of public policies on crime."

The incentives to create an atmosphere of fear are commmercial and electoral. Vested interests create a morality play from the problem, casting themselves in the roles of the Good Guys' whose help is needed or whose product must be bought. In order that this view should prevail a substantial body of evidence which could reduce fear and alleviate the problem of crime is largely ignored.

Our saviours among the vested interests, far from being part of the solution, are part of the problem.

***************************
2. How much crime is there?

COMMISSIONER WREN CAN BE EXCUSED FOR putting a good face on things, but the truth is that his figures of a crime decrease are at best a rough reflection of the amount of garda activity in anyone year. (This does not stop the official garda statistics being abused by sections of the media when they appear to show an upturn in crime.)

Garda statistics are compiled for specific garda purposes.

They can be useful for plotting trends, but it is extremely hard to draw from them definite conclusions about crime levels. The reasons for this are varied.

Some of the reasons are technical, having to do with whether proceedings are instigated and how alleged offennces are categorised by individual gardai. There is also the . problem that the official categories of "indictable" and ,"non-indictable" crime, supposedly an index to the serioussness of offences, are wildly out of date. Petty theft can come under the heading of indictable, or serious crime, while drugs offences may be left out.

There is also the important factor that garda statistics are dependent on members of the public reporting crime. About 85% of crime noted by gardai is reported to them by the public. This is subject to unmeasurable fluctuation. For instance, if the public is frustrated at an apparent inability of gardai to take effective action, then many people simply don't bother to report offences such as break-ins, as they may believe the gardai can do little to catch the perpetraators. This will show up in garda figures as a drop in crime. On the other hand, if public anger about crime is stimulated by reports of crime waves some people may demand garda attention on minor offences such as broken windows, petty theft and the like, which previously they might have written off as part of the price of living in a city. This inflates the statistics, though actual crime levels may be much the same. Therefore, while garda statistics have their uses, they are not the most reliable index of crime.

Another method of compiling crime statistics is the vicctimisation survey. Sociologists stress that this is not an allternative to the garda statistics but a complement. It is compiled from a series of interviews with a large sample of the population and is probably a more reliable indicator of crime levels, though this too has its hazards.

Tuesday of this week saw the publication of the first such survey conducted in the Republic, Crime Victimisaation in the Republic of Ireland, by Richard Breen and David Rottman, published by the Economic and Social Research Institute.

The first thing to be said about the ESRI survey is that it.is overdue. Because of its uniqueness it is limited in its usefulness. There are no previous surveys against which to measure change. It is also extremely limited in its scope. The survey piggy-backed on an existing EEC Consumer Survey and was limited to assessing the levels of six crimes: burglary, theft from the vicinity of houses, vandalism of houses and property, theft from the person, theft of cars and theft of objects inside cars. A similar survey in Britain in 1982 ,more sophisticated and more detailed,cost£250,OOO sterling. However, despite the millions spent here on "secuurity" there is a reluctance to spend the money necessary to provide the basic tool of knowledge of the problem.

Victimisation surveys have their dangers in that they rely on memory of victims, some of whom may include in their replies crimes committed outside the timescale of the surrvey, thereby exaggerating figures. Incidents may themselves be exaggerated and occurrences which gardai would not 'consider a crime may be designated as such by a victim. However, despite its hazards the survey is a useful tool.

The ESRI survey suggests that only between half and two-thirds of reported incidents appear in garda statistics, for burglary, car theft and theft from cars. It is estimated that the annual number of burglaries lies between 35,000 and 46,000. There are about 31,000 car thefts.

These rates are high, even by international standards @and the authors of the ESRI report urge caution about toooeasy comparisons. The figures constitute a problem, howwever, not a crisis. The victimisation rate for burglary per 100 households is 3.6. The rate for car theft is 4.7. Thereefore, while the totals are high, these crimes affect a relativeely small percentage of the population.

Burglary and car theft are the crimes about which most of the fuss is being made. Unfortunately, the survey did not extend to wider areas of crime.

"It remains possible," says the report, "that burglary and car theft are offences that are particularly prevalent in Ireland and that other forms of crime, such as assaultive offences and white collar crime are at low levels in Ireland, relative to Great Britain." The report notes that the level of homicide, "the most reliable of crime indices," (as the presence of a body means that virtually all homicides come to official attention) is low. Since there is a relationship between the level of homicide and the level of interpersonal violence (in that many homicides are assaults that went too far), this appears to be "strong evidence of a low rate of assaultive crime." This is supported by garda figures which show that "offences against property without violence" accounts for 60% of crime and "offences against the person" only 3%.

So, the evidence is of high rates of crime against particuular forms of property, on a par with rates in other industrial countries, with no evidence of an overall high level of crime. ''The risk of crime victimisation," says the ESRI report, "in most of Ireland remains very low indeed, and even within Dublin it is concentrated among particular neighhbourhoods and age groups." And, "for much of the counntry's population the risk of crime is virtually non-existent." While pointing out that the fact that "the burden of risk is most unevenly distributed, with some households having a very high risk and others a low level of risk," is poor connsolation to those who become victims of crime, the report stresses that it is important that this be recognised.

If a definable problem, such as exists, is portrayed as a general crisis there are two significant consequences. It produces excessive fear, restricting movement unnecessarily and degrading the quality of life for far larger nummbers than are actually at risk. It also diverts resources from the real, identifiable, problem into grand political gestures which are little more than shadow-boxing.

*********************
3. Origins and causes

PRIOR TO 1965 THERE WERE THE GOOD OLD days. There was little crime. One reason there was little crime was that there was little of anything. The change in economic strategy in the late 1950s brought major social changes in its wake and it brought them rapidly. The channges which were to occur within a few years had in more advanced industrialised countries taken place decades earrlier and at a much slower pace.

One reason there weren't so many car thefts prior to, 1965, for instance, was that there simply weren't all that' many cars. In 1960 there were 170,000 cars registered. By 1970 there were 390,000, more than double the 1960 number. By 1984 there were 711,098 cars registered, again almost doubling the number since 1970.

Similarly with other consumer products. There were fewer burglaries in the past because there was less to steal inside most houses. In the 1950s a few hard cases might think it worthwhile risking a jail term to steal the money from a gas meter. Most people were too bright for that. Today there is a wealth of portable valuables in a much greater number of houses. there was nothing as valuable as a video worth stealing from a house back in the good old days and so the height of a delinquent's ambition in Dublin in the 1950s and early 1960s was stealing apples from orrchards.

There are also more homes to burgle. In 1971 there were 726,000 households in the Republic. By 1981 there were 898,000. Although the population had risen by only 16% in that period the number of households increased by 24%. There were more targets to choose from.

There were also social developments which facilitated an increase in crime. The close-knit community of old was gone and Dublin became a city of housing estates. If you were of a mind to steal in the old Dublin you had to do it in communities where people knew who was who and strangers stuck out. It was more difficult. Just as it is more difficult to be a criminal in a small village than in a city, so it was more difficult in a series of close-knit communiities.

People became more mobile. The richer classes gathered in their clusters, the poorer in theirs. The inequalities were more obvious, more widespread, the riches of one became more accessible to the other.

The drain of young people in the emigration of the 1950s left the older and the very young. The result was a disprooportionate number of young.

Then there was unemployment. In 1960 there were 65,000 unemployed. This was considered too high. In the 'boom years unemployment fell. In 1965 it was 57,000. By 1970 it was going up again to 64,000, then 91,000 in 1975. It was still at that level in 1980. Five years later it is 230,000. That is four times the figure for 1965.

Of those 230,000 about 70,000 are under twenty-five.

And these are official bedrock figures, with thousands more hidden away in training schemes.

These two trends - a much greater opportunity for crime, and social upheaval that reveals gross inequalities and leaves thousands disaffected - combined to produce the increase in crime. Other countries arrived at this equation by different routes. We arrived here late and quickly.

**************************
4. Who is committing crime

THERE ARE MANY FORMS OF CRIME AND MANY types of criminals. It is estimated by sociologists and criminologists that white collar crime results in the theft of more money than any other form. It is a form of crime left unmeasured. Businesses hesitate before calling in the police, the affair is covered up. Even allowing for that it is possible to think offhand of several businessmen who have served prison terms or who fled the jurisdiction before their collars could be felt, their activities costing massive sums of money.

Tax evasion is arguably a crime more detrimental to society than burglary, but it is socially acceptable to many.

There is a very small number of professional criminals, those who stage armed robberies, deal drugs or burgle for a living.

The vast majority of those who commit the kinds of crimes which make the headlines fall into two categories. There are the chronic delinquents, who start out with petty crime and carryon with it into adulthood, serving longer and longer prison sentences for not very great financial returns. Then there are the many young people who pass through a phase of criminal activity.

David Rottman, co-author of the ESRI survey report, has been studying crime in Ireland for the past ten years. He is an American who came here ten years ago, a socioologist who works as a senior researcher with the ESRI, specialising in the study of crime. Among the reports he has worked on is a 1980 study of statistical trends in crime in the Republic. Recently the National Economic and Social Council published his report on The Criminal Justice Sysstem: Policy and Performance. Along with such academics as Ciaran McCullagh in Cork and Kevin Boyle in Galway, Rottman is one of the few researchers who has contributed to the important body of work on Irish crime which has slowly and belatedly been building up.

In his NESC report Rottman examines the backgrounds of 20,000 Dubliners whom the gardai connected with crime in 1981. Not all of these were convicted, obviously, nor even charged, and many were concerned with petty offennces, but the analysis gives an insight into who is committing crime. In particular, who is committing the kinds of crime about which there is currently an outcry.

One quarter of those apprehended were sixteen years of age or less. Those under twenty-one totalled 58%. The dissproportionate number of young people drawn into crime is shown by Rottman's analysis of those brought into the criminal justice system in 1979. Although only 4% of the population was in the fifteen to sixteen age group, 19% of those the gardai dealt with were that age.

Of those in the age group seventeen to twenty only two out of ten of those connected with crime were employed. The standard of education was low. Of the adults, over oneethird lived alone or in lodgings. In an analysis of those twenty-one and over connected with crime Rottman found that only about 40% were married. Among the same age group in the general population 70% are married.

The conclusion to be drawn from such statistics is not that bachelors are crime-prone, still less the simplistic equation that unemployment equals a propensity towards crime for straightforward economic reasons. Although it is obvious that poverty sometimes of necessity leads to crime - people have to eat - the unemployed are as moral as anyone else and the connection is somewhat more compliicated.

Rottman notes that those involved in the vast majority of crimes have "substantially fewer conventional attachhments" to mainstream society. They leave school earlier than most, tend to be unemployed, unmarried. They have not achieved the links with society which gives them someething to lose should they grasp some of the many opporrtunities for crime which an urban industrial society presents.

Rottman is careful to point out that "this is not to exxcuse the individual who commits a crime." Rather it is to stress the determining importance of opportunity to gain from crime and the fact that for many people crime - even with the ultimately poor financial returns and the dangers of punishment is a more attractive option than any other which the criminally-involved person has.

Rottman: "Adulthood shifts the balance of attraction decisively in favour of conventional, lawful activities for. most people. Only a small proportion of juvenile delinnquents continue to be involved in crime as adults. The resstrictions and insecurities of adolescence ... the "kicks" and excitement of trouble-making and the financial returns from crime all become less relevant by the late teen years. Adult status is achieved, and in most circumstances the ennjoyment and profit of conventional activities exceed what a continuation of crime can provide."

The significance of mass unemployment, therefore, is that it lessens the chances of young people who are involved in crime being filtered out of a criminal lifestyle, because it removes one of the main attractions of adulthood, ajob. It increases the number who carryon stroking, for want of a better option, and thus increases crime levels.

In his NESC report, Rottman uses the image of a subbculture to explain criminality. A subculture is a set of beliefs, values, norms and customs existing within a larger social system and culture. It has its own values, terms of reference and even language. For instance, there is a GAA subculture, a theatre subculture, ~ political party subcullture. All of these latter intermesh with the rest of society. The outlaw subculture has the least number of convenntional attachments to society. Since this subculture operates at some distance from the norm, socially, economically and often even physically ghettoised, it would be indeed surrprising if the one thing it shared with the rest of society was a conventional regard for the laws of property.

Again, Rottman stresses that this is not to excuse indiividual decisions to engage in crime. "It is not to excuse but explain," he says in an interview. "I wouldn't feel sympathy with someone who stole my television because he didn't have one, nor with a judge who used that to excuse the crime - though I'm not aware of any tendency in Irish courts to accept this argument."

*************
5. Joyriders

SINCE JANUARY 19 OF THIS YEAR, ACCORDING to the Garda Press Office, over 500 people have been arrested for offences related to joyriding. The vast majority are juveniles and most have been charged with being carried in stolen cars.

(Some people take offence at the use of the term "joyyriders". However, the term is quite accurate and appropriate. The cars are stolen not for profit or for use in further crimes but simply for the thrill of it.)

Gardai don't usually keep specific records of numbers arrested for joyriding. There are, for instance, no comparaative figures for last year. The fact that the figures are availlable now reflects the pressure on the gardai from political sources, and that in turn reflecting the pressure on poliiticians.

Yet, odd as it may seem, there are indications that joyyriding has in fact decreased during the recent past - precisely in that period when the media became most obsessed with it.

Gardai in one northside housing estate say that they are dealing with fewer nightly incidents of stolen cars than they did last year. In January-March 1984, they say, there were 147 cars stolen in the area. So far this year there have been 107 cars taken. Gardai in other stations point to this area as probably the worst for joyriding.

In the first three months of this year a total of 3,352 cars were stolen in the Republic, according to garda figures. This represents an 18% increase on the figures for the same period in 1984.

It is unwise to draw too many conclusions from such figures at this stage, but the figures indicate that the hysteria generated in recent months stems not so much from a real breakdown in social order as a perceived breakdown stimuulated by inaccurate assessment of the problem.

"What's new," says one garda, "is riot the joyriding @which has been going on since there were cars - but the attitude of the kids has changed. They go out looking for a garda patrol car to ram, for a scalp, as they call it."

"It's just for kicks," says one of a group of North Strand joyriders aged between fifteen. and seventeen (with one aged twelve). "If the cops are after us then we'll ram them alright." They don't feel too antagonistic towards the police. "They're just doing their job, aren't they?"

Gardai on the night shift say that the kids have become more sophisticated, they like the chase and like to take on the patrol cars. After several deaths last year the gardai cut down on the high-speed chases. Recently, the media hysteria has once again prompted a policy of hot pursuit.

The gardai say they are driving "bangers" and the kids know they are easy targets. "You'd need at least a 2-litre to take them on in the kind of cars they're going for."

"We had a Sierra here once," says a garda in Finglas.

"We were really getting on top of the situation then, but it had a crash and hasn't been seen since."

Of the abundance of stealable goods now available to those detached from society, the car is one of the most vulnerable. It is also one of the most attractive, argues David Rottman. Its symbolic importance is one of the main features used in advertising }ts desirability to purchasers. The fifteen year-old with no prospects of ever owning a car is as affected by that symbolism as the rest of us.

And for a small but significant number of people for whom arguments about property rights are irrelevant there is nothing more attractive to do than steal a car.

***************************************
6. Who is most at risk of victimisation

THE BREEN-ROTTMAN victimisation survey showed that 73% of all burrglaries take place in Dublin. One of the reasons is that households likely to have goods worth stealing are connvergent on areas where the young, poor, badly-educated with no prospects live. They are only a bus or BMW ride away. Households most at risk belong to those which promise the greatest finanncial return and those where guardianship is least.

Those which promise the greatest return are middleeclass households, preferably with a young couple both of whom have white collar jobs. These are most likely to have an abundance of stealable goods and most likely to be unguarded for the greatest lengths of time. "A very clear pattern is apparent," says the ESRI survey, "with the level of victimisation being highest for households headed by the nonral self-employed, next highh. est for other white collar workers, somewhat lower for manual workers and very much lower for farmers."

Criminals are rational. They do not prefer to burgle the homes of the young and strong. As well as the households containing stealable goods, the criminals aim at those least likely to give them trouble. "Specifically," say Breen and Rottman, "we anticipate that in single-person households the elderly will be at greatest risk of burglary."

In the west of Ireland attacks on the elderly are nothing new. They have recently, in line with the trend elsewhere, increased. Gardai investigating the attacks have concluded that there is not an upsurge in indiscriminate attacks on the elderly but a small number of professional criminals; who have identified an easy source of money, are at work. Most of these are known to the gardai. The attacks are invariably at rtight, with a group of four or five men going into the house, taking out lightbulbs and using flashlights. The nummber of raiders - far in excess of those needed to intimidate .the elderly - coupled with the use of flashlights and threats of violence instill extreme terror into the victims. Once raided, many old people do not return to the homes in which they have been living for many years. They stay with relatives or end up in old people'S homes.

The attackers appear to make advance visits to houses, sometimes in the guise of traders, in order to assess their chances. Old people in the west commonly save large amounts of their pensions, usually to pay for their funerals. Many have a fear of "a pauper's grave" and would rather live in misery than die without dignity. There is an immbalanceIn the population due to the 1950s emigration; making the old more vulnerable.

Relative to the overall amount of crime the attacks in the west are a minor' problem. However, because of the often savage nature of the attacks and the extreme vulnerrability of the victims they arouse almost as much public outrage as joyriding.

There is a fundamental difference, however, in the probb'lems the two types of crime present to the gardai. The attacks in the west are almost a technical problem, one of planning and detection. The attacks have in the recent past been responsive to such efforts. The attacks abated after 'teams of detectives were applied to the problem in Decemmber last. When the detectives returned to Dublin in January the problem recurred and by March had reached a new highpoint. On March 12 teams of detectives were once more applied to the problem, going to Sligo, Salthill, Doneegal and Mayo once again. A number of people were arrested and charged arid the problem again abated.

It is much easier' for the gardai to deal with a specific problem posed by professional criminals. Joyriding and the majority of urban burglaries are less susceptible to tradiitional methods of crime control.

Yet the resources which the gardai might coolly apply, having assessed victimisation risk and likely results, are not theirs to apply in a methodical and professional way. Those resources are subject to political direction, which is in turn ' influenced by stimulated public concern which is often misplaced.

*********************
7. Hark! THe Herald

IN JULY 1980 THE MANAGING DIRECTOR OF Independent Newspapers, Joe Hayes, produced an eighttpage confidential report on the Evening Herald. Hayes is a whiz-kid in the marketing business and his job is to sell newspapers. He also, perhaps more importantly, wants to sell advertising, to chop off a portiort of the market claimed by the Press Group. His strategy at the Herald was to prooduce a livelier, more sensational paper, aimed at young readers from the AB social category. Hayes' new tabloid Herald Was brash and provocative: The paper often deeclined to let the facts get in the way of a good story; News was not to be treated as news, according to Hayes' report, it would be treated "from a balanced middle-class persspective."

This meant that the paper would say what its journalists believed the young middle-classes wanted to hear. How accurately they catch that middle-class tone is a matter of debate. One senior journalist routinely refers to the Kerry Babies inquiry as the "Kerry Bastards" case. More sensitive staffers flinch at his daily inquiry as to whether "the Kerry Bastards copy" has come in yet. This crudity translates into a sort of cartoon coverage of middle-class interests.

Throughout January of this year the Herald's news pages, like all the other papers, were dominated by the Kerry Babies inquiry. Although the reporters at the inquiry merely fed in straight copy the treatment of the story was inevitably crude, With the most titillating aspects chosen for headlines, often resulting in a misleading report (although the Herald was not alone in this).

There had been significant changes in the Herald followwing the death of editor Niall Hanley in the Eastbourne air crash and the appointment last year of Liam Ryan as news editor. Ryan is what some call "hard-nosed". Niall Hanley was replaced by Michael Brophy, another hard-nose. Under this pair of blunt instruments the Herald became even more brash. News was to be linked to features, producing a cityycentred paper dominated by middle-class concerns.

Since, as the Breen-Rottman study showed, those most at risk of burglary and car theft are young urban middleeclass people, precisely the target of the Herald marketing strategy, it was inevitable that the paper would be dominaated by crime coverage.

A legitimate concern of a section of society would be portrayed as a massive problem for all. The level of crime perpetrated against the Herald's target readers would itself be exaggerated and the threat would be generalised to all.

The effect was not to generate understanding of the problem and stimulate a search for a means to reduce risk. Instead, the effect would be to generate and generalise fear and a demand that "something" be done. And that fear would be pandered to by a continuous diet of horror stories unrelated to the real dimensions of the problem.

It should be emphasised that there was no bad intention in any of this - the Herald is in the business of selling newsspapers and was marketing its product as best it could. The problem stemmed from the fact that the Herald and a signiificant proportion of those involved in crime had both chosen the same social groups as their prime targets: young, middle-class, urban people with money.

*********************
8. This Is Your City'

ON MONDAY FEBRUARY 19 THE EDITOR OF THE Evening Herald, Michael Brophy, called an editorial meeting with news editor Liam Ryan and features editor Peter Carvosso. A young boy had been stabbed in Dublin over the weekend and there had been several confrontations between joyriders and gardai.

The Herald had been on the crime bandwagon for some time, but now it would make the story its own. It wasn't just enough to cover the occasional news story, said Brophy, we should be in there on a regular and systematic basis. That decision had already been taken at higher levels in Independent House. A few aspects of crime, those troubling the Herald's target readers, would be concentrated on, would become the major news.

Of all the thousands of things that happen on any day a small number were pre-chosen to be designated the major events. Group news editor Ray Doyle would later admit on Day By Day that this policy had been "established within Independent Newspapers by representatives of editorial executives at a very high level. It has been decided that we should engage in this war."

After the editorial meeting on Monday March 19 a deciision was made to run a special issue on crime the following Monday. Features were commissioned and a slogan was coined, "This Is Your City", which would be used as a logo to link the pieces through the paper. Paddy Murray interrviewed Michael Noonan, Minister for Justice.

Unfortunately for the Herald no one got stabbed in time ,for the special issue of Monday 25. There was no big crime story with which to lead. The interview with Noonan beecame the lead, with the headline "New Bid To Beat Crime". There was no new bid to beat crime, just Michael Noonan putting the best face he could on things. He mentioned that crime had fallen last year but that was buried in the copy, just as Commissioner Wren's speech would be suppressed.

In the end, the six "crime" pages in the special issue, hung on a rather thin news story of a burglary in Finglas where a boy was threatened with a knife. Distressing for those involved, but hardly sufficient to warrant the slogan "Capital Under Siege".

The following night the Herald's front page blared, "Rampage By Teenage Car Thieves", over a listing of joyyriding events of the night before. Nothing extraordinary had happened but the routine car thefts had been promooted to major news events.

During the next month, March, the Herald devoted half of its front pages to the crime story, giving an impression that a crime wave was building to a climax. The week beeginning March 11 saw the return of the "This Is Your City" logo, accompanied by a picture of a crashed car. The folllowing day, Tuesday, saw the launch of a campaign against joyriders. The front page headline was "Don't Let Them Out On Bail". All the resources of reporting, photographs and cartoons were recruited to the war. Again, nothing out of the ordinary had happened, gardai say that joyriding had actually decreased in this period, but the Herald had made its plans.

The barrage continued on Wednesday and Thursday. An editorial proclaimed that "Thugs Have Never Had It So Good", claiming that the gardai could do nothing about the problem - although earlier in the week the Herald had reported that 500 kids had been arrested in connection. with joyriding. Brendan McGahon TD, who has publicly' bragged about dodging paying tax on his betting habits, was interviewed under the headline "Send Them All Out To The Blaskets".

The barrage paid off. On Friday 15 the Herald front page announced "Spike Island Is Opened".

Other newspapers were competing, of course, but the Herald is best at this kind of thing. An artificial stimulation of public anger, not related to the reality of the problem but to the commercial needs of the media, had dictated public policy on where resources should be applied. "The decision on Spike Island seems to have been made first in the papers," says David Rottman, "the government had no choice."

Over the following weekend Senator Michael D. Higgins. criticised the media, and the Herald in particular, claiming they were encouraging the problem, not helping it. On Monday morning Higgins and Ray Doyle, the Independent Group News Editor, discussed the issue on RTE's Day By Day. Doyle claimed that the paper was "basically involving . itself in a fundamental reporting exercise. We report each day's events as they happen." The paper was in fact invollved in a fundamental marketing exercise. .

As for reporting things as they happen: on April 9 and 10 two teachers' leaders made speeches at conferences, both of which related to crime. Larry Kavanagh of the TUI dealt with the effect of education cuts on young people. This gave the Herald a front page lead beginning, "The uppsurge in crime involving young people ... " The next day, Kieran Mulvey of ASTI made a direct attack on another form of crime, tax evasion. Both speeches were part of "each day's events as they happen," yet Mulvey's speech was consigned to a small spot on page 2 while the front page lead was "£14m Is Lost To Burglars". Tax evasion involves much more than £14m, yet Mulvey's speech was denied the status given to Kavanagh's.

In the Day By Day discussion between Michael D. Higgins and Ray Doyle, Higgins castigated the Herald's approach and pleaded that the paper look at the reality of 'the problem as outlined in studies by such people as David Rottman. To do otherwise would be irresponsible. That was March 19. Eight days later the Herald, while continuing its hype on crime, slipped in an.interview with David Rotttman. Among the criminal fraternity this is known as estabblishing an alibi.

***************
9. Crimewatch

ON DECEMBER 2 1983 T~E IRISH TIMES HAD A t front page story which claimed that "More than oneefifth of all Irish households are likely to be burgled in 1984 and more than half of these burglaries will involve violence." The figures on burglary had, ironically, been obtained from the Insurance Corporation of Ireland, which will certainly cost the Irish taxpayer more hard cash than burglars steal in several years.

The figure of one chance in five contrasts with the BreennRottman study, which shows one chance in twenty-seven. Breen-Rottmans' figures exceed the garda statistics. The Irish Times report, guaranteed to fuel hysteria, is questioned by Breen-Rottman. "The claim of violence in one half of all burglaries is curious. Most burglaries occur while the resiidents of a dwelling are away. Could the violence be selffinflicted by the burglar?"

Breen-Rottman point to the vested interests who benefit from the exaggeration of crime levels. "All those concerned with reporting crime - police officials, politicians, security firms, insurance companies and police representative assoociations - seem preoccupied with establishing that crime has reached unprecedented levels. Upsurges in crime are also attractive to the news media. Crime sells copies with a reliability few other news items can match."

The burglary story which displaced Kieran Mulvey's speech from the front page of the Herald on April 10 was based on comments from insurance company and security firm sources.

The Herald's ally in systematically fuelling hysteria has been the Irish Times. A North Strand joyrider, aged sevenn. teen, jokes that he's heading off to look for a BMW to do a ramming andmake the front page of the Herald. Another, who's regarded as the king of his trade, heard on the Gay Byrne show about the "Crimewatch" column in the Irish Times. He began, for the first time in his life, to buy the paper to see how often his cars made the column.

Ostensibly the column is a chronicle of crime. In fact it is an attempt to portray a society breaking down. (Its author, Padraig Yeates, last week told a UTV audience, on Counterpoint, "society is breaking down.") We chose a column detailing the items picked up by Yeates while moniitoring the garda radio on Saturday March 30. Saturday night is most likely to be the roughest and this was the Saturday of the Triple Crown match, when the beer flowed like cliches at a Herald editorial meeting.

"11.47pm: garda car involved in accident with a woman driver at junction of Cork Street and Donore Avenue." It is hard to see what this is doing in "Crimewatch", but it is one of three accidents in the column. Several of the "crimes" are alarms going off. Anyone living near a premises with an alarm will know the validity of that.

There are fourteen stolen car reports, ten robberies or attempted robberies or break-ins. Apart from these the column could have been compiled in the halcyon good old days. And it should be remembered that these are reports, . not definite incidents.

There are about a dozen "disorderly" calls. Disorderly conduct could be someone breaking a window, or it could be a group of kids hanging around under a streetlight, deepending on the paranoia of whoever called it in. There are some "suspicions". There are three "fights".

In a city of a million people the level of crime seems remarkably low, even allowing for calls which Yeates did not monitor.

The most intriguing report is one of the "submachine gun gang who robbed the No 22 bus." We checked several garda stations along the bus route and none had heard of a submachine gun gang. Phibsboro garage, which houses the No 22, had heard of a robbery at the terminus in Drimnagh, when two men got on and one took a hand gun from his. pocket. The Garda Press Office knew nothing about a subbmachine gun gang. They checked and found that someone had robbed the driver and conductor of £40. One of them might have had something that looked like a submachine gun but they weren't sure if there had been one robber or two.

There is no evidence of a sub machine gun gang terroriising Dublin, yet that was the impression given by "Crimeewatch". It was not the fault of the gardai that this confuusion arose, nor of Yeates. Everyone was just doing a job. "Crimewatch" is not intended to be an accurate portrayal of the level of crime in Dublin, it is a marketing device, like the racing results or the cookery column, designed to win readers. If it was possible to monitor calls to the fire briigade it would be possible to print a column called "Fireewatch". This would include hoax calls, panic calls, mistaken. calls and genuine calls. It would, day after day, give the impression that Dublin burned down last night.

In the Breen-Rottman report the authors are clearly wary of their work becoming grist to the hysteria mills. They are dismissive of the value of "Crime Crisis" and "War on Crime" headlines. They point out that their figures can be used to show that there is a burglary every thirteen minutes and a car theft every eleven minutes. "On the other hand, they also show that, on average, every house in the country is likely to be illegally entered once in twenty-eight years, and each household is likely to suffer the theft of a car once in twenty-two years." The statistics, they say, "may be used to show the existence of either a high or low risk of crime, depending on where the emphasis is placed."

***********************
10. Coping With Crime

THE DISTORTION OF THE REALITYOF THE LEVEL of crime is likely to reduce the possibility that such !TIeasures which might be taken to alleviate the problem are stymied, as resources are diverted into dead ends to placate public fears stimulated by vested interests.

What will work?

Breen, Rottman and others who have made detailed studies of crime here and abroad have made recornmendaa-tions. In the short term they are unlikely to be heeded. Near the end of his NESC report Rottman recommends that a number of earlier reports be please taken down from the shelf and acted upon. Rottman admits that he would not be surprised to read a report in ten years time which suggests that the Rottman report be dusted off. Despite the image perpetuated it is not the soft-on-crime bleeding heart appproach which has triumphed and paved the way for crime crisis. Again and again, from repressive legislation, through Loughan House, to Spike Island, the hardliners have had their way.

What will work? The sociologists say that nothing will work with the small numbers of professional criminals which exist other than systematic police work, such as has been exercised in' attempts to combat the attacks in the west. Even that will not eliminate such attacks. The thousands of miles of roads through the west are impossible to police. Community acction such as has been tried and which has had some effect also helps.

There will always be a small amount of professional crime. Such criminals get mopped up eventually, serving longer sentences for smaller gains. "Those individuals for whom crime is a continuous and lucrative activity are rare indeed," says the NESC report.

More police? International studies have shown again and again that this simply doesn't work. It may displace crime for a short time, diverting criminals to.softer targets, but it doesn't work. The most famous study was done in Kansas City in the late 1960s, when Lyndon Johnson was throwing money at society's problems. A number of similar areas were chosen. Some retained the same level of policing, some had it lowered, some had it vastly increased. There' was some displacemerrt of crime but the level stayed the same. The main result was to scare the hell out of those living in the most highly policed areas, who became more fearful of crime.

Longer sentences? This has happened. The NESC report shows that in 1971 some 56% of sentences were for less than six months. By 1982 that had dropped to 38%. In the same period sentences of two years or more increased from under 1% of all sentences to 7.7%. In that period, of course, crime increased regardless.

What will work?

The vast majority of crimes are caused by young people who drift out of crime as they attain conventional attachh.ments to society. The sociologists say the only thing that will work is to increase the likelihood of those attachments being made. "It is when social rewards for being a conform-' ing person cannot compete successfully with the gratifica-, tions of crime that the latter are avidly pursued."

It is unlikely that such an approach will be adopted. The slow and careful steps needed would not be listed daily in the' Irish Times, they would not make headlines in the Herald. The artificially stimulated hysteria about crime makes people more receptive to a macho approach. "It all depends on what people want," says David Rottman, "whe-. ther they want things that work or they want things that make them feel better." Rottman argues for a focus. on "avoidable crime", to bring a sense of reality to the issue. Most crime derives from opportunity and from rangeof choices.

Free enterprise attempts to limit opportunities for crime, through security devices and the like, will merely displace crime. In West Germany there has been an-apparent success in reducing car theft through official action which required all cars to be fitted with anti-theft devices.

Such strategies are limited. The long term means of cut· ting crime, say the sociologists, is by increasing the range of choices available to young people, for whom the most attractive choice at present is crime. There are other meassures involving changes in policing which Rottman suggests. Few are likely to be taken heed of.

On the facts known about crime there-is strong evidence that recent "get tough" measures will make the problem worse in the long run. Some of the young people jailed at the instigation of the Herald may be frightened off, but most would eventually have dropped out.of crime anyway. At least as many will probably find themselves thrust furrther away from the kind of attachments to society which would have taken them out of crime. Given the rate of· recidivism, the enlargement of the prison population inn. exorably enlarges the numbers of those who remain active in crime.

Crime can, the statistics suggest, be coped with. It cannnot in present circumstances be eliminated. Crime, says Rottman, is a serious problem but a manageable one. As long as society consists of sections with vastly unequal shares of wealth, as long as some members of the poorer sections havea very limited range of choice, so long will a small proportion of the latter sections choose to take it where they can get it.

Two and two equals four.