Experience in the US has shown that governments can reduce violent crime, but to be effective we need to understand today's criminals, writes Ian O'Donnell.
There is a lull in gangland killing at the moment, although the shootings have continued. It is only a question of time before the next bullet finds its mark. This provides an opportunity for us to reflect on the nature of the problem and how best to address it.
Why do young men gun each other down without mercy and with apparent disregard for the consequences? What kind of understanding can we bring to the kind of lethal retaliation that has left so much blood on city streets over recent weeks? Is it naive to hope for a return to calm and order?
The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has proposed a wide-ranging package of crime-control measures. This includes mandatory minimum jail sentences for certain firearms offences; criminalising gang membership; and using electronic tags to restrict the movement of selected individuals on bail or on temporary release from prison. Will these initiatives make Ireland safer?
Before considering these questions, it is important to set out three key facts.
First of all, the problem is largely concentrated in urban areas. Despite concern about rural violence, the murder rate is lower in the Border counties and the west than it was in the early 1980s. The factors that have kept large swathes of the country safe have not received the attention they deserve.
Second, the number of so-called gangland killings has risen dramatically. A Department of Justice study of the 20 years up to 1991 found only two incidents of homicide, out of more than 600, that could be attributed to gangland feuding. Already this year it is estimated there have been around 18 such deaths. This is a transformation of worrying proportions.
Third, the recent trend has brought Ireland into line with other European countries and Dublin into line with other capital cities. It is not that the country is peculiarly violent today. Rather, in the past it was peculiarly crime-free.
One noteworthy aspect of recent killings is that there is no demarcation between potential killers and potential victims. They are generally young men with few educational qualifications. Many are known to the police and some have extensive criminal records. They could as easily be looking down the barrel of a gun as squeezing the trigger.
These men exist within an environment where people have become accustomed to grotesque violence and where the boundaries of acceptable conduct have been stretched alarmingly.
If the evidence from other countries is any guide, they operate according to a code within which the idea of "respect" assumes overwhelming importance.
Above all else, encounters between young men on the margins are shaped by the need to save face and avoid humiliation.
There are clear rules about what is considered to be acceptable conduct.
What might appear at first glance to be a random act of violence is often strategic and focused. The courts use punishment to send out a message about deterrence or retribution or condemnation. So too do street criminals.
The non-payment of a debt, uninvited excursions into someone else's territory, spreading malicious rumours, threats to family: all can be seen as potentially demeaning.
Not to respond is to confirm one's vulnerability and invite trouble. To respond effectively may require the use of overwhelming force. Either approach makes further violence more likely.
To this context must be added the financial rewards of the drug trade; the sense of belonging that goes with involvement in a criminal enterprise of any kind; the exhilaration that can accompany a lawless lifestyle, and the associated recognition. These make crime attractive, even seductive, regardless of the risks. It will not be possible to legislate these problems out of existence.
We know very little about the dynamics of violence in modern Ireland; how those who bludgeon, stab and shoot at their peers have arrived at a point where they believe such actions to be appropriate. Acquiring this knowledge presents major ethical, logistical and interpretive problems. In addition, it takes a long time, is labour intensive and may expose researchers to danger.
However, it can be done. Criminologists elsewhere have made great efforts to get violent men to account for themselves. Sometimes this work is carried out with individuals who have been arrested and imprisoned or who have put crime behind them.
Occasionally it involves active offenders. The insights gained from such research, for example into what makes neighbourhoods prone to violence, can be drawn upon in the policy-making process.
We know little about Ireland's gangs other than what we learn from media reports. In other countries gang members can be identified by their clothes, place of residence and tattoos. Their initiation may require the commission of a serious offence. In Ireland it seems that loose, and shifting, alliances of brothers, neighbours and friends are the backbone of gangs.
They have few distinguishing characteristics. Defining a new offence of gang membership with sufficient precision will present a challenge.
Studies of criminal decision-making show that the likelihood of a swift arrest is given much more weight than the potential penalty. This is one reason why mandatory minimum sentences seldom have the deterrent effect that legislators desire. In an environment where a criminal's paramount concern is self-preservation, and where this is seen to require the ready availability of lethal firepower, harsher penalties for gun possession will be accepted as an occupational hazard.
While it is working-class men who are caught in the crossfire, the market for drugs, especially cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy, straddles all social groups.
In this way the desires of those who live in leafy suburbs and quiet country towns contribute to the deaths of inner-city drug traders. There seems to be little enthusiasm to address this dimension of the problem.
Trends in violence are cyclical and recent events do not mean we are locked into a relentless upward spiral. The United States has become a much less dangerous place over a short period of time. There were almost 25,000 killings in 1991 compared with 16,000 last year.
This dramatic fall has been attributed to a number of factors. These include tighter controls on the sale and possession of handguns; a decline in the use of crack cocaine; an ageing population; and innovations in policing.
There has been a massive increase in the use of incarceration in the US, where there are now more than two million people behind bars. However, the impact of imprisonment on the crime rate has been marginal, and has come at huge social and economic cost.
The clear lesson is that when it comes to building prisons, there is wisdom in restraint.
New technologies such as electronic tagging may have a role to play also and the proposal to introduce this option on a trial basis is a sensible one.
We do not know if the homicide rate in Ireland will increase further, stabilise or decline.
What is required is for politicians to press for understanding as well as condemnation, and to ensure that the contours of the problem are fully elaborated before deciding on the final ingredients of any package.
A number of interesting proposals have been made. They should be introduced carefully and their impact evaluated. If they have the desired effect, we will all benefit.
If they do not, the Government should not hesitate to discard them.
Dr Ian O'Donnell is deputy director, UCD Institute of Criminology