THE criminal cleansing lobby is in full cry. As law-breaking levels spiral upwards, the old, failed and dismal menu is touted before the public. "Hang `em" might not be an option, but solutions like "Flog `em" and "Lock `em up and throw away the keys" are gaining popularity.
And, of course, the organisations entrusted with society's first line of defence - the Garda and the Prison Service - explain that if only they were given more money, resources and greater legal powers by the Government, all would be well.
There is no doubt that a serious and growing problem exists. But it hasn't sprung, fully formed, from the forehead of Nora Owen. It has been festering for 20 years or more. And it has been the subject of more government-sponsored inquiries and reports than you would care to hear about.
The development of a drugs culture in this State, with its attendant increase in crime, is just the latest manifestation of social exclusion and breakdown.
And Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats have grabbed Fine Gael's traditional law-and-order cudgel with relish and proceeded to beat the tar out of the Rainbow Coalition. With the economy doing so well, crime is a possible election-winner for Bertie Ahern and Mary Marney. Especially where middle-class Dublin voters are concerned.
Government spokesmen complain (they would, wouldn't they?) that the crime issue is being hyped out of all proportion. After all, the figures were worse in 1983. And they accuse talk-show hosts, in particular, of being responsible for purveying an atmosphere of retribution and fear.
Whatever about the validity of that complaint, it is something of a paradox that the most vociferous proponents of old-fashioned, penal retribution are frequently the same people who rail against excessive government spending and taxation levels.
The protection of property and the status quo, rather than a social restructuring which would deal with the underlying causes of crime, are the favoured option.
Locking up dangerous criminals is a vital weapon in the armoury of a civilised society. But it is an extremely expensive response to crime. And it has been shown to be ineffective.
There has been a three-fold increase in the prison population in the United States over the past 20 years. In some cities, one in four male inner-city adults are in jail. Britain has the highest prison population per head in Europe and the level of crime is increasing.
Clearly, there is a breakdown in social cohesion. And far more is required by way of government response than the provision of extra prison places.
Throwing money at the crime problem will not solve it. In the past 15 years, expenditure in this State on the Department of Justice votes rose from roughly £100 million to £600 million. And the appetite for increased funding remains insatiable.
DURING the week, the British Economic and Social Research Council joined Nuffield College in Oxford in proposing a new, inter-disciplinary approach to address British social ills.
Crime was examined within the context of a changing society, where greater affluence and more goods to steal, along with a reduction in the level of social constraints, promoted theft.
The report said that, while prison did "work" to some extent, it compared badly with the alternatives. These included wider use of police cautions, community penalties and treatment programmes for drug-dependent offenders.
It encouraged continuing reforms within the criminal justice system. But it recognised that a belief among the under-skilled that crime did actually pay was the nub of the problem.
Education, employment and welfare policies were to provide the answers, according to the year-long study.
"Options targeted on the unskilled," it said, "include cutting payroll taxes, combined with a minimum wage, extending family credit and, in the longer term, schemes to improve skills. Policies to get the unskilled into paid work are of vital importance - the market rewards for unskilled work are likely to continue to decline - because of the relative rewards for crime and other anti-social activities
"The education and training for the bottom half of the ability range must be substantially improved. This will almost certainly involve the transfer of resources from higher education to nursery education, the shortfall being made up from an income-contingent loan.
"Reforms of the benefit system are also appropriate, the underlying aim being to sure that work always pays.
As to the welfare state and options against poverty, the report stated: "The corner-piece of any reform programme must be a `welfare-to-work' strategy.
"This strategy should be based on the introduction of a minimum wage; a jobs, education and training programme for the long-term unemployed and lone parents; an increase in child benefits and a childcare strategy. Such measures will increase both the capability of unemployed welfare recipients to work and their incentive to do so."
SOME of these approaches are already being considered by Government here.
And, no doubt, various Ministers will fight their corners next Tuesday, in preparation for Budget Day on January 23rd.
There are plans to cater for the long-term unemployed, and Proinsias De Rossa is looking for welfare and child allowance increases. More prison spaces are high on the Minister for Justice's agenda. And, given the baying in the streets over rising crime levels, she will almost certainly get them.
But before we go charging off in pursuit of a rigidly, policed, penal society, careful consideration should be given to the alternatives outlined in the British study.
Even as things stand, there is room for improvement. One in five prisoners are at present in jail for the non-payment of fines, which is a dreadful waste of space and of public money.
And, while some elected representatives campaign against the establishment of local drug treatment centres, the plague spreads and an estimated 40 per cent of the inmates of Mountjoy are said to be "serious drugs users".
It is here that misinformation and the massaging of figures by vested interests comes into its own. Last year, in a bid for extra resources, Garda sources claimed that 80 to 90 per cent of crime in parts of Dublin was drugs-related.
And yet, when the official crime figures came out, those charged with drug offences amounted to 4 per cent of the national total.
In the same way, leaked information on the numbers of prisoners who absconded while on parole from Loughan House over Christmas helped fuel public disquiet over the prison system. And yet nothing was heard of the matter in 1993 and in 1994 when the number of absconding prisoners was even greater.
That is not to say that the policing and the prison systems should not be improved. But it is clear from the experience of other countries that the answer to our crime problem lies much deeper than many people are prepared to recognise.