ANALYSIS:WHEN COMMENTING on the crime figures released yesterday, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern played a selective game.
He almost completely ignored the worst set of data, which outlined crime trends for the 12 months to the end of September.
These figures revealed that of the CSO's 14 crime groupings, the number of crimes increased in 10 categories and fell in four.
Instead, Ahern restricted his comments to the more positive trends, those for the last quarter. During that three-month period the number of offences fell in 10 categories and increased in four.
Ahern welcomed the 8 per cent fall in murder threats over the last quarter, but he neglected to mention the crime had actually increased by 46 per cent in the past 12 months.
Similarly, he welcomed the 2.9 per cent decrease in public order offences over the past three months, but he ignored that those same offences increased by 2.9 per cent over 12 months and now account for 21 per cent of all crime.
Ahern need not have bothered with his massaged analysis. The new figures show an increase in recorded crime of 5 per cent over the past 12 months, but there is still plenty of good news in there.
This year the CSO has taken over from the Garda in compiling crime statistics. The Garda used to publish figures for headline, or serious, crime only, but the CSO counts everything.
So when gardaí stage a major push against drink drivers or those possessing drugs for personal use, the resultant high numbers of arrests push up the recorded crime rate. This kind of activity should be celebrated by the Minister, not ignored.
The increase in 4,140 cases of drug possession and drug dealing detected by gardaí might be seen in some quarters as proof the drugs trade is out of control, but this represents a 23.5 per cent increase in drug detection in a 12 month period - and the number of drug users have not increased by that level.
So even though the drugs trade is growing, the figures strongly suggest gardaí have gained ground on the drugs gangs in the past year.
Drug dealing is like no other crime. It involves two parties; someone who sells drugs and someone who buys. Neither reports the crime to gardaí so increased detection levels are brought about exclusively by increased enforcement.
Similarly, the number of gun possession cases increased by 19 per cent, but as society grows more violent, anything but an increase in such detections would be worrying.
The increases in thefts, public order and property-related crimes are disappointing.
However, some of these rises are thanks to a larger Garda force using better resources and more modern policing techniques to do what the public expects of them; detect and solve more crime.
