THE STATE needs to be more proactive in preventing gangland crime rather than expecting gardaí to deal with the consequences when shootings occur, head of the Garda Inspectorate Kathleen O’Toole has said.
In a rare interview, Ms O’Toole said Ireland could learn from the experience of Boston, where she was police chief.
She said 1,000 young people in that city at risk of engaging in gun crime were identified by police, and they, and their families, were targeted with a range of resources to prevent their progress into serious criminality.
Ms O’Toole has also advocated major changes to the current system whereby uniformed gardaí spend long hours in court even when prosecuting minor offences and before those cases reach a critical point.
She said the current system involved “gardaí hanging around all day”, adding that such an approach was “a waste of resources”.
Her comments on gardaí attending court hearings may be seen as controversial because Garda management has already rejected one of her recommendations aimed at excusing senior officers from appearing in court so they can focus on more pressing duties.
She said a pilot scheme in Dublin, where sergeants appear for all Garda witnesses up to the point where testimony is required, could avoid wasting Garda time.
Ms O’Toole told the Law Society Gazette if more gardaí were relieved of court duties they could spend time on the beat in communities and help prevent crime. This might result in effective interventions in the lives of young people who were “at risk”.
“In the spring of 2005 I called the gang unit in and said ‘find me the 1,000 young people in the city who are most likely to pull a trigger or be a victim of a violent crime this summer and let’s see what we can do in advance to prevent that from happening’.”
She said the police worked with schools, the probation service and social services in gaining access to the homes of about 850 of those identified.
“Often you had a single mother just trying to make ends meet. We said: ‘what can we do to help you keep this young person out of harm’s way? Does he need a job? Does he need a literacy programme? Do the younger people need summer camp? Do they need additional social services’? ”
Many older gangland criminals were beyond rehabilitation and require a “tough, relentless” policing approach. However, the next generation could be engaged and developed.
Pointing to Limerick as a case study, she said: “The police alone are not going to resolve the problems in Limerick. It has to be a multidiscipline, collaborative approach. Prevention and intervention are more important than enforcement.”
She “absolutely” supported the ban on legally-held handguns proposed recently by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern.
“A lot of guns that are used in the commission of crime in the States – and I suspect that trend will develop here if there aren’t controls – are guns that are stolen from their rightful owners.”