RIME is said to be the number one issue in the election campaign. Most recently propelled by the nebulous concept of "zero tolerance", hardline law and order rhetoric and simplistic electioneering on crime now dominate political discourse.
This view persists, even in parties with a genuine interest in being tough on the causes of crime as well as on crime itself.
A punitive mindset holds sway and politicians seem convinced that promising more gardai and more prison places is the only sure path to success at the polls.
Changing patterns of crime in recent years have given cause for serious concern and our chaotic criminal justice system is a ripe target for criticism. So much is wrong with it that criticism is warranted from all political and ideological viewpoints.
Victims, law abiding citizens, tax payers, the Garda, prison officers, the judiciary, even the lowly criminal and unesteemed criminal lawyers have real grounds for complaint.
We all have a stake in the efficiency of the State's £600 million plus a year apparatus for combating crime, and we all have a right to be concerned at the many black holes that soak up enormous sums.
In this context, the Department of Justice's new discussion paper, Tackling Crime, is a very welcome attempt to provide an informed and thoughtful overview - and to draw up the preliminary outline of a rational strategy for addressing the issues. It also appears to be a sincere attempt by the Department to break its tradition of secrecy and haughty detachment.
Equally important, for the first time it presents us with an official picture of the crime problem, based on facts and cool, dispassionate analysis. Tackling Crime is blessedly free of the defensive obscurantism that people have come to expect of such documents. And it is untainted by the blatant party political point scoring that devalues most Irish debates on the issue.
INEVITABLY, this pioneering effort to drag popular, political, media, and official thinking into the light of day and into the closing years of the 20th century is ambitious and at times confusing. Presenting facts and a balanced analysis of the causes of crime, it also examines the criminal law and the role of the Law Reform Commission, the Garda, the courts, the prisons, the links between drugs and crime, alternatives to custody, and the specific problems of victims.
This broad, comprehensive approach means that some important topics are dealt with in a cursory manner or not at all. But this approach is to be commended if only because it demonstrates the multi dimensional nature of the underlying crime problem and the immense complexity of the system designed to address the problem. Tackling Crime moves away from the present practice of piecemeal tinkering with the system, which is one of the chief causes of the current chaos.
The section on the Garda Siochana serves as an example of both the virtues and deficiencies of the approach taken by Tackling Crime. We learn a great deal about the numerical strength and the deployment of the Garda and about how it currently formulates its mission and goals.
An interesting graph on Garda detection rates shows us that detection rates have been improving of late, yet the graph does not avoid the less palatable truth that present rates still lag far behind those of the 1970s.
While we are reminded that the Garda "will succeed not by force of arms or numbers, but on their moral authority as servants of the people", there is no mention of the scandalous disunity and rank and file infighting that may have done more to undermine the gardai's public standing than their limited ability to impact on crime.
Again, while the benefits of Operation Dochas and of community policing approaches are emphasised, we hear nothing about the serious tensions between the Garda and some disadvantaged communities and some anti drugs activists. However, it is unfair to criticise the discussion paper for what it does not cover when it makes such a creditable effort at breaking new ground.
Tackling Crime courageously takes up some very valid but highly unpopular positions. Most significantly, the document's premise challenges the tendency to focus solely on the wrongs of the individual criminal and on how to catch, punish, and deter him.
The document acknowledges that deep rooted inequities in our society and inequalities of power, wealth and opportunity play a powerful role in generating crime. And it recognises that without actively pursuing social justice, especially through education, employment, and the empowerment of socially excluded youths from disadvantaged backgrounds, all our efforts at reducing crime are doomed to failure.
Extending this line of thought one key passage addresses the issue of hidden crime, that "more educated, articulate, or affluent people tend to think of crime as the wrongdoing mainly of those generally in less advantaged situations. There tends to be a certain ambivalence, therefore, in relation to the significance of offences such as drunk driving, fraud, tax evasion and other forms of `white collar' crime." The zealous advocates of zero tolerance should take careful note.
While the paper discusses the numerous Government reforms that have been introduced, such as the Criminal Assets Bureau, a large expansion of the judiciary and structural changes to the Garda, the one initiative it suggests is a Crime Council. This was first proposed by the Dublin City Chamber of Commerce and it envisages a forum of all the significant players, including the Garda, the judiciary, the media civil servants and community representatives.
This enlightened proposal could become a mechanism to raise the public and political debate on crime to a more informed, realistic and reflective level. And it might help to improve coordination between the various sectors of the criminal justice system, which is much needed, and to make it more democratically responsive, more accountable and more transparent.
THE authors make it clear that they were severely hampered by the lack of basic information and analysis on crime and the operation of the justice system. One major theme is the need for a proper research infrastructure to provide a database, independent evaluation of the system, and a theoretical understanding of crime and punishment.
There seems to be every reason to translate these aspirations into action immediately. This would signal a genuine sea change in the Department's culture and in how society approaches its crime problem.
Certainly, it is difficult to imagine a progressive document such as this emerging from the Department of Justice even 10 years ago.
Dr Paul O'Mahony is author of Criminal Chaos: Seven Crises in Irish Criminal Justice and Crime and Punishment in Ireland.