Between 1958 and 1998 the number of recorded indictable crimes increased fivefold (from 16,527 to 85,627). In these pages recently Louis Power attributed this rise to a shift in the moral sense of the nation, a blurring of the distinction between right and wrong.
He suggested that loosening the ties that bind in family, community and church has created an environment where the brakes on crime are released. "What other explanation can there be?" he asked.
Mr Power's argument echoed some of the themes raised by former Garda Commmissioner Patrick Culligan in an Irish Times article in September 1994, when the official crime rate was heading for an all-time peak.
Mr Culligan portrayed a society in transition where traditional authorities were being challenged, new social norms were evolving and more opportunities to offend were becoming available.
He outlined eight key transformations that in his view had led to the increase in crime. These were:
Dismantling the authority of the family;
Closing reformatory and industrial schools;
Outpatient care for the mentally ill;
Prison sentences being reduced inordinately by an unpredictable temporary release system;
Social pressure for both parents to go into the labour force;
Dismantling teachers' authority;
Abandonment of the religious ethic;
Dispersal of established communities from city-centre locations to new housing schemes many miles away.
The critique put forward by these commentators harks back to a supposed golden age of stability, civility and contentment.
This was a time when life in Ireland was apparently ordered and predictable, institutions were benign places, and the enforcement of discipline was unproblematic. In such society, law-breaking was regarded as unusual.
However, as we now know, it was a society in which a wide range of criminal activities were concealed and unreported. For example, many of the sexual offences that were recorded by the Garda in 1998, and mentioned by Mr Power in support of his thesis, were committed many years previously, in some cases as far back as 1958.
The huge changes in family and social life in recent years have generated unease in some quarters about the nature and direction of social change, in particular its unforeseen consequences.
Indeed, all the predictors of crime highlighted by Mr Culligan exist in a more intense form today, with the exception of high levels of temporary release for prisoners. On this basis one would expect a relentless escalation in crime rates.
In fact, the opposite has occurred. Between 1995 and 1999 the rate of recorded crime fell by 21 per cent. This was the sharpest reduction in the EU.
Crime rates are three times higher in Germany and Finland, and four times higher in Belgium and Denmark. For the most serious crimes the pattern is different. The murder rate in Dublin is broadly comparable to other European cities - higher than London but lower than Paris.
Such a fall is not unprecedented. Between 1983 and 1987, crime dropped by 17 per cent. It is difficult to interpret these fluctuations. However, it is unlikely that trends in crime are primarily explained by cycles of moral "decay" and "repair". There would seem to be more mundane forces at work.
In our book, just published, Crime Control in Ireland: The Politics of Intolerance (Cork University Press) we argue that the recent drop in crime is explained by a combination of new criminal justice policies, the buoyant economy, and improved healthcare for heroin addicts. The first of these factors is the least significant.
In our book, we suggest that periods of increased economic consumption tend to be accompanied by short-term drops in crime.
This is largely the result of a reduction in offences against property. However, we also argue that the overall reduction in crime conceals an increase in offences against the person.
This is explained by the tendency for people with greater disposable incomes to spend more time in pubs and clubs, settings where interpersonal confrontations are likely.
The growth of beer consumption has been identified as the single most important factor in explaining the growth in violent crime.
These contradictory trends illustrate the difficulties associated with interpreting crime figures. All we can be sure of is that the crime rate is a poor barometer of the moral health of the nation.
At one level, nostalgic perceptions of the past are relatively harmless - things were always better a generation ago.
The danger lies in using these romantic views as a basis for formulating criminal justice policies.
The focus should be on developing a set of guiding principles suitable for a modern criminal justice system, not on returning to traditional values.
Dr Ian O'Donnell is Research Fellow, Institute of Criminology, University College Dublin.
Dr Eoin O'Sullivan is Lecturer, Department of Social Studies, Trinity College Dublin.