THE "Duncan case" controversy has reverberated in two directions. There has been a very public political row about when the Minister for Justice and the Taoiseach knew that if the mistakes made in this extradition case had been made by the Garda and not the British authorities. But in the public sphere the controversy seems certain to add to the less easy to document disquiet about the competence of our police force. Was the mistake made in this instance only a once off error, or could it be just one highly publicised symptom of deeper flaws?
Take two cases, within my own experience. A woman driver, stopped at traffic lights in Summerhill in Dublin, has her side window smashed and her bag stolen. Gardai arrive 40 minutes later, record the crime but express little hope of finding those responsible. An elderly couple find the bag without the purse which had been in it but when the gardai in the local station, Store Street, are informed they have no record of the original incident.
No explanation
A man is stopped by the gardai for speeding in a residential area. He is told he must produce his driving licence and, evidence of insurance in a local garda station, which he duly, does. Months later, a garda arrives on his doorstep with a summons for him to appear in court front having insurance or a driving licence. When the man goes to the garda station to which he reported, the large black diary in which the entry was made is taken from a shelf and the name and details found. No explanation is given as to why this information not passed on to the relevant gardai.
Both these incidents are rather humdrum small details, one might think, in the larger picture of police work in this country.
And yet I suspect, to many members of the public will recognise as true to their experience this sketch of a police force which seems at once to place a huge emphasis on recording and note taking, yet at the same time seems to lack efficiency in processing the information.
Even those of us lucky enough to have had few dealings with the Garda know that individual members of the force are often hard working and dedicated, in an often difficult and dangerous job. Yet, walk into a garda station in Dublin to have a form filled out or to record a minor crime or accident, and be prepared to wait. The work of the station will be audibly going on, but when an officer finally appears, expect your request to be treated as something of a chore. Even as the civil and public service has been streamlined to great effect in its dealings with the public, the Garda have lagged behind.
Changing society
All this would be of limited relevance if it were not the ease that the nature of Irish society is changing rapidly, particularly in the cities. We have been fortunate to have had an honest, unarmed and well liked police force in this State. In many country areas the local garda will continue to bet, respected by virtue of his or her position But in large tracts of the cities this is now not their case. Whether our need for competent and efficient policing is met in the future will depend greatly on whether our police force is transparently competent and efficient. Whether ordinary people report crime as a matter of, course will increasingly depend on whether they feel it serves any practical function.
New York lessons
The Minister for Justice has a difficulty. Whatever the statistics may say, she must be aware that crime is more of a problem now than ever before in modern Ireland.
The Minister or, more likely, her successor, should eventfully see the need for radical reforms. How has a relatively small city like Dublin developed a shocking level of drug abuse and drug related crime? How have gang leaders grown from petty criminals to wealthy and powerful figures without being convicted of major crimes? Criminologists say that what deters criminals above anything else is the chance of being caught, a dictum which seems relevant in our search for answers.
Changes in the law, in the tax regime and in the education system are long overdue. But is it not time that we also looked hard at the policing system, particularly in the light of the lessons learned in New York in recent years, where the insight that solving small crimes curbs the big criminals has yielded dramatic success?