Politicians' Logic in the Fight on Crime

8th July 2009

Earlier this week, I was trying to unblock drains at the back of my house. Stop reading now if you are of squeamish disposition. While it is about as unpleasant a chore as you might encounter, it’s one of those jobs that can’t really be shirked. So doing my best amateur plumber impersonation I put together my copper rods and plunging disc, opened the manhole cover outside the kitchen window and started to prod and plunge around. One hour and a visit from Dynorod later, it was explained very patiently to me that if the blockage in the drains is further downstream than the manhole you’re plunging in, then all you are likely to achieve by interfering with it is to draw up sludge onto your patio. Basically, if the problem is somewhere else in the pipeline, you’re wasting your time and are only going to cause a big nasty mess. Once again, apologies to the squeamish.

And so, on to the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009. There is a problem with gang-related murders using firearms. Something must be done about this problem. The Government proposes a Bill which claims to be targeted at gang crime. Therefore, we must all support it. The classic Sir Arnold definition of  "Politicians' Logic" from the wonderful 'Yes, Prime Minister'. Only that in this case the Bill proposed promises nothing to address the availability of guns, the intimidation of witnesses or the provision of resources to the Garda to gather intelligence on these gangs. In fact, the same Government is proposing to cut Garda numbers. In fact, the proposals are about removing the right to jury trial even though there is scant evidence of any interference with juries and when it seems the DPP has had no use for the last batch of emergency gang-related legislation, introduced just a few years ago.

The issues raised by the Bill relate generally to the fair trial rights of the accused, issues that IPRT generally leaves to our colleagues in ICCL and in the legal professions who are ably leading opposition to this Bill. However, IPRT shares with these groups a commitment to evidence-led policy in the area of crime and to rational and considered debate on how to best address crime as a social problem. We believe in this approach because it is likely to lead to the best solutions for society at large.

In this context, a Government which is cutting Garda resources while proposing to solve a policing problem by removing the right to jury trial, reinforces the sense that this is all about optics and nothing about a serious or considered approach to deal with a problem.

The submissions on the Bill of some of the groups opposed to the Bill are available at the following websites: http://www.iccl.ie; http://www.ihrc.ie; http://www.lawsociety.ie