Crime statistics/analysis: The short time-span involved in compiling the latest crime figures makes them unreliable as data, writes Paul Cullen
For all the political brouhaha they generate, crime figures as they are currently compiled tell us relatively little about the problem in our society today.
Quarterly figures in particular, such as those published yesterday, suffer from even greater limitations than the annual statistics, as three months is simply too short a time to determine trends. Seasonal factors may apply, and rarer crimes can show huge but misleading variations; the latest figures, for example, show a halving in the number of manslaughters since the third quarter of last year - from two to one.
More fundamentally, changes in the figures for many categories may have more to do with improved detection rates rather than a real increase in a particular type of crime. Indeed, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell exploited this ambiguity yesterday when he first welcomed an overall drop in the figures and then went on to welcome a huge increase in detected drugs offences, attributing the latter to "dogged and skilful" work by the gardaí.
The employment of an additional 450 gardaí over the past year could, and should, also have an effect on the number of crimes detected.
Then there are the limitations of the data traditionally compiled by the gardaí and now presented for the first time by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The distinction between headline, or serious, crimes and non-headline crimes seems artificial to many.
There is no mention in these figures of tax fraud and other forms of white-collar crime, and neither is there reference to offences prosecuted by other State agencies, such as the Director of Corporate Enforcement or the Department of Agriculture.
Further, many crimes, not all of them minor, go unreported and are not, therefore, recorded in the statistics.
The CSO, recognising these shortcomings, has set up an advisory group to examine how the statistics can be improved. It also plans to develop a more comprehensive body of information by including other types of crime and the work of other bodies.
For the moment, though, we are stuck with the same figures collected using the same methodology previously used by the Garda. At least the CSO carries the stamp of independent, expert analysis and has provided more detailed figures covering a wide range of offences.
Overall, there is little change in the figures over last year. Some 77,610 headline offences were committed in the first nine months of this year, compared to 75,288 in the same period last year. These included 44 murders, up from 38 the previous year.
Some trends are faintly discernible in the gloop of figures. Robberies of cash and goods in transit fell one-third, probably because of new security measures to prevent such heists.
In contrast, there were more cases of false imprisonment, perhaps reflecting the recent growth in "tiger" kidnappings of bank staff.
Meanwhile, the continuing growth in drugs offences surely reflects the diversification and geographic expansion of the trade, although no regional statistics were included in yesterday's CSO bulletin.
While firearms offences were stable, the big news here is the arrival next week of mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes. Mandatory sentences of 10 years already exist for many drugs offences but are imposed by judges in only 20 per cent of cases.
Mr McDowell was keen yesterday to remind the judiciary of their obligations under the new law, but there seems to be little he can do if a court rules that a short sentence be imposed because of special circumstances.
Overall, though, as the Minister pointed out yesterday, the number of serious crimes per head of population is now lower than it was in 1995. Crime rates in the Republic, even for serious offences, are generally lower than in other western states. These figures are far more important than the latest soundbite-prompting snapshot of figures from the past three months.