Politicians will cause criminal damage to justice

THIS is a low point in our political life. A government has been bludgeoned into sponsoring a crime package that will do real damage to the fabric of our system of justice by Opposition opportunity, public alarm and its own incompetence. We may indeed be at the "defining moment" in our recent history, but not because of the damage inflicted by the criminals but of the criminal damage about to be inflicted by politicians.

Of course, there is a crime problem. There has been a steady rise in crime over the last 30 years (in 1965 the number of reported indictable crimes was 16,736 and in 1994 it was 101,036). The emergence of drugs has created a sub culture and spawned a degree of organised crime on a scale greater than before. There have been a series of murders in the last 18 months associated with gangland crime, all unsolved. And a week ago there was the horrific murder of a respected journalist at the behest of one of several "crime bosses".

But this doesn't amount to a crisis threatening our democracy or the foundations of the State. Our crime levels are low by international standards. The more serious manifestations of crime (i.e. offences against the person) have declined, and the bulk of the increase occurred in the least serious area larcenies of goods valued at less than £200. Even if the drugs culture has created more crime bosses, there are still only about two handfuls at most, with little influence outside their immediate circle.

They constitute a menace to competitors in the criminal world and, obviously, to one or two journalists who, for whatever reason, appear a threat to them. But by no stretch of even the most fevered imagination do they constitute a threat to our democracy.

Moreover, there are measures available from the armoury of "ordinary" law and executive action that could have a major effect if competently deployed.

A huge number of the crimes committed each year are linked to drug addiction. And yet the Government's response to this problem has been negligent.

The concentration in relation to the drug problem has been almost exclusively on the supply side, although international experience shows this rarely succeeds. There is simply too much money to be made from trafficking in illegal drugs for people to be deterred. It is almost certainly the case that even if we succeeded in jailing all of the current "drug barons", a new crop would sprout up to cream off the huge profits available.

THE surprise is not that we have failed to win the war against drugs on the supply side but that we have done virtually not to combat the demand side. There are two obvious measures that could have been taken over the last several years that were not because of incompetence on the part of the responsible ministers.

The first has to do with the provision of treatment facilities for drug addicts treatment programmes in clinics and detoxification units. We simply have not bothered. Michael Noonan's recent proposals are not too late, but they are pathetically too little.

Worse than that, Ministers for Justice have failed over the last decade to provide treatment facilities in Mountjoy for drug addicts. The significance of this is that 45 per cent of crime committed occurs in Dublin a very large proportion of this (maybe two thirds) is drug related most of the people involved in such crime get caught and, eventually, imprisoned in Mountjoy no attempt has been made in Mountjoy to deal with the additional problems of these offenders offenders who have been on treatment programmes before going to jail are denied access to such programmes in jail and therefore emerge worse off than they were on committal.

The contribution of this incompetence and neglect on the part of successive Ministers for Justice to the scale of the crime problem is enormous. Those same people responsible for this are among those now baying for the debasing of our, legal system to deal with the consequence of their stewardship.

The next obvious measure was the reform of the criminal justice system to ensure that the delay in bringing cases to trial was greatly reduced.

Part of the current hysteria has been generated by the case of the Dublin heroin dealer, Tony Felloni. He had been charged with drugs offences in August 1994 and granted bail. He was charged with a second drugs offence in January 1995 and again granted bail. A further drugs charge was brought against him in July 1995, when he was again granted bail. He was eventually tried on all charges two weeks ago, almost two years after he was first charged.

RTE and the politicians who have made such a meal of this case have overlooked a kernel point had proper procedure been in place, Felloni would have been tried on the first charge before the second could have arisen there was an interval of five months between the two.

This measure has been obvious for years, and yet nothing has been done.

Another measure would have been a minor legislative change removing discretion from the courts to impose a suspended sentence in cases where a person is convicted of an offence while on bail.

What is known as "consecutive sentencing" was introduced in the Criminal Justice Act, 1984. This provided for persons convicted of an original offence and of a further offence while on bail to be given consecutive, not concurrent, sentences.

When this measure began to bite in 1986 it more than halved the number of detected crimes by people on bail. However, when in the last few years the courts began to suspend the consecutive sentence the number of detected crimes on bail again shot up. The obvious legislative correction was not undertaken.

EVEN more incredible is the failure of Nora Owen to do what she made great play of a year ago and which was blindingly obvious anyway the enforcement of co-operation between the Garda, the Revenue Commissioners and the Customs and Excise staff in the pursuit of crime bosses. On that failure alone Nora Owen has proved unfit for office, or perhaps it is the Government that is unfit.

It is also evident that the competence of the Garda in dealing with the manifestations of modern crime is in doubt. And how could it be otherwise, given its rigid and deeply conservative recruitment policy?

There is therefore no need for draconian measures, no need for alarm, no need to undermine the fabric of our system of justice, as certainly proposals on bail seven day detention and the right to silence entail. These measures address only the desperation of an embattled, incompetent and cowed government and the rampant opportunism of a cynical Opposition.