Garda under-recording crime trends - inspectorate

The Garda has been under-recording crime trends by almost 40 per cent and in many cases those offences recorded were later reclassified to become less serious offences, according to the Garda Inspectorate.

The head of the group, Chief Inspector Bob Olson, described a Garda force that was under-resourced, where workloads were high and personnel such as inspectors and sergeants were so bogged down in administration they spent 90 per cent of their time desk-bound.

He said information technology that had been available to other police forces for 30 years and could map changes in policing demands and the need for changes in how resources were deployed was still not available in the Republic.

Reform

When asked if the very extensive shortcomings in resources and operations found by the inspectorate’s two year investigative process would emerge if the same resources were applied to examining other police forces, he suggested the Garda was in need of more reform.

“I would kind of be surprised to see this much [need for improvement] .... a lot of work needs to be done here. It will take years.”

In many cases, in the absence of a particular crime being recorded as an offence, members of the force said it was not recorded because the victim did not make a complaint.

However, the inspectorate has insisted the willingness or otherwise of a victim to make a statement is irrelevant and that all crime must be recorded immediately.

"It is unacceptable, a neglect of duty and a disciplinary matter," Deputy Chief Inspector Mark Toland said of gardaí not recording offences.

“If the crime of burglary, for example, is not reported, you will never know if you have a burglary problem and never commit the resources to it.”

Reclassified crime

While reclassified crime could result in the offence becoming either more serious or less serious, in more than 80 per cent of reclassifications crimes were downgraded.

The Garda was also significantly overestimating the level of crime it had solved, or detected.

While the official figures from the force suggested it had an impressive detection rate of 46 per cent, the two-year study by the inspectorate on how the Garda investigates crime has found a detection rate of a much more modest 26 per cent.

When the inspectorate examined some 25,000 reclassified crimes, some 71 per cent of decisions were found to be incorrect. Just 13 per cent of reclassifications were found to be sound.

In 16 per cent of cases the lack of information on the Garda’s Pulse computer database meant it was impossible to determine where the reclassification was correct or not.

However, the body, which studies policing practice and recommends change, said policing generally in the Republic was “patchy rather than dysfunctional” and that the failure to record crime properly in many cases resulted from a lack of official process and “intrusive oversight”.

With basic policing practices, such as taking fingerprints from suspects, there were very serious shortcomings, with 30,000 people who could have had their prints taken since 2012 evading that process.

This shortcoming was not restricted to minor criminals, with rapists and murder suspects not being fingerprinted when they should have been.

The force’s record on domestic violence was also problematic. In one case, a woman who called gardaí to report she had been assaulted by her partner using a small table as a weapon was assured assistance was on its way, but it never arrived.

The crime was never recorded and it was not until 12 months later, when the Garda Inspectorate requested information on the case, that gardaí called to see the woman.