CRIME LEVELS:DRUG CRIME, up 137 per cent, increased at a much higher rate than any other form of criminal activity in the five years from 2004 to 2008.
Homicides and sexual offences actually decreased in the five-year period. But almost every other crime type increased in the five years to the end of 2008, a Central Statistics Office (CSO) study reveals.
Murder threats and attempts increased by 44 per cent, weapons offences including gun crime were up 86 per cent, public order crimes increased by 29 per cent, damage to property was up 20 per cent, thefts were up 6 per cent and road traffic crime was up 79 per cent.
Of those categories that saw a decrease in the period, homicide offences – including murder and manslaughter – were down 9 per cent. Sexual offences were down 20 per cent, and robbery, extortion and hijacking offences were down by 15 per cent.
The data also reveals burglaries fell nationally by 1 per cent in the period under review.
The CSO’s analysis is contained in the Garda Recorded Crime Statistics 2004-2008 report, published yesterday.
The CSO data released yesterday does not include crime figures for last year. Indeed, some of the trends revealed in the five-year analysis are not consistent with last year’s figures.
For example, while burglaries decreased slightly between 2004 and 2008, they increased last year.
Drug and gun crime sharply increased between 2004 and 2008 but actually showed decreases last year. And while homicides decreased in the five-year period covered in the report, they increased last year.
However, the CSO report represents a long-term analysis of the Republic’s crime trends that simply cannot be captured in crime figures for one year, which has been the traditional period covered by CSO crime-trend studies to date.
The latest report also offers a breakdown of the Garda’s success in detecting crime in 2008 and also reveals the parts of the country worst hit by some types of crime in that year.
This is the first time the CSO has published such detail.
Opposition parties said the report reflected poorly on Fianna Fáil, which has been in government for the full five-year period under review.
Labour’s spokesman on justice Pat Rabbitte TD said the rise in drug crime was particularly worrying. “It is the drugs trade that fuels many other areas of crime, including the gun wars between gangs. We have already seen eight gun murders in the first two months of this year, most of them gang-related.”
Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern, Mr Rabbitte said, “would be better served devoting less time to being the Government’s boot boy” and focusing more on combating the drugs trade.
Fine Gael’s spokesman on justice Charlie Flanagan TD said the rising crime rates showed the Government was “losing the war on crime”.
He added: “2010 has begun with an appalling spiral of bloodshed. People are obviously killing with impunity in the knowledge that the chances of being convicted are slim.”
The rate of detection for homicides in 2004 was 95 per cent, but had fallen to 83 per cent by 2008.
Other detection rates include: sexual offences, 56 per cent in 2004 and 57 per cent in 2008; burglary, 17 per cent and 26 per cent; thefts, 31 per cent and 31 per cent; drug crime, 96 per cent and 99 per cent; weapons offences including firearms, 82 per cent and 91 per cent; public disorder, 86 per cent and 93 per cent.
Of the 89 homicides recorded in 2008, some 67 legal proceedings have begun to date.
Of the 1,407 sexual offences recorded in 2008, some 329 proceedings have begun.