PEOPLE should think twice about supporting the introduction of "zero tolerance" of crime to this State, a representative of the Garda Juvenile Liaison Scheme told a weekend child care conference.
Did delegates want him to walk out of the hotel and prosecute everyone he found parking illegally or speeding? Garda Con Donoghue asked members of the Irish Association of Child Care Workers in Killarney.
Zero tolerance meant prosecuting people for minor offences which police departments everywhere ignored every day, he said.
Eighty nine per cent of children dealt with under the Garda Juvenile Liaison Scheme stayed out of trouble, he said. Under the scheme children who get into trouble with the law are cautioned and a garda works with the child and the child's family.
At a time when there is a growing public appetite for punishment, and a vastly reduced tolerance of wrongdoing by children, it was no easy task for any western government to strike a balance between control and welfare in juvenile justice policy, Mr Tom O'Malley, a lecturer in law at University College, Galway, told the conference.
The Children's Bill, currently on its way through the Oireachtas, has considerable potential for helping children who fall into crime and delinquency if full use was made of community sanctions and if the necessary resources were provided, he said.
There was no indication in the Bill that the Government intended to increase the number of detention places for young offenders.
Many children found themselves on the street in a dark and seedy world where they were exposed to drugs, abuse, crime and prostitution because there were three different Government departments dealing with child care, all of them operating independently, Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, of Focus Point Ireland, said.