It is appropriate that criminal justice legislation should include a comprehensive range of provisions allowing those whose task it is to uphold the rule of law to do so in an effective and robust fashion. In approving a package of amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill yesterday, the Cabinet sanctioned proposals which Justice Minister Michael McDowell maintained were the correct response to the changing nature of crime.
In that regard, many of the proposed amendments to the Bill have been well-signalled. Some, including the introduction of anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos) and electronic tagging, have been the subject of public debate and, occasionally, hostile public comment. And although the political context for yesterday's Cabinet decision is defined by recent gangland murders, the changes championed by Mr McDowell should continue to be the subject of the closest scrutiny as the legislation makes its way through the Oireachtas.
Admittedly, there are some positive elements in the Minister's proposals. But his characteristic self-certainty should not detract from questions over the details of what has become an exceptionally broad piece of legislation. In the case of electronic tagging of offenders, for instance, will the introduction of such a system reduce the prison population by offering an alternative to detention? Will it be used to enhance existing communitybased sentences or as an alternative to imprisonment? And how will offenders be monitored, and by whom?
Much has been made in recent days of the relatively early age at which many of those involved in gangs at the centre of recent murders first came to the attention of the Garda. But would the Asbo system have offered an effective earlier response to such youngsters? Or would it have criminalised them at an earlier stage and confirmed them on the destructive paths on which they were already travelling?
A more fundamental question relates to whether the criminal justice system will be any more effective in enforcing the offences now being proposed than it is in bringing offenders to justice for the multitude of crimes already on the statute books. Indeed, it is arguable that the enforcement of existing legislation would obviate the necessity for much of what is now being proposed.
Unfortunately, the approach of this Government to crime prevention, like that of so many of its predecessors, is characterised by a headline-grabbing and narrow focus on the justice system. To his credit, Mr McDowell has been responsible for some positive initiatives in his time in the Department of Justice. But experience demonstrates that yesterday's Cabinet decision will fail to deliver the sustainable and long-term results so urgently required unless it is matched by a properly-resourced drive to tackle the root causes of crime. Research at home and abroad has clearly defined the factors involved. They include poverty, social exclusion, drug abuse and family dysfunction. They must also be addressed.