A reduced reliance on prison sentences and locally-based interventions are among the recommendations in a report on ways of bringing down crime.
The report, A Crime Prevention Strategy For Ireland: Tackling The Concerns of Local Communities, was published in Dublin yesterday by the National Crime Council (NCC). It advocates the establishment of local crime prevention partnerships involving the 34 existing county and city development boards.
These should, it says, be the main forums through which such small local crimes as larceny, minor drug offences, muggings and assaults are tackled.
Introducing the report, Mr Padraic White, chairman of the NCC, said the importance of "imaginative, local area-based interventions targeting the specific concerns of communities must receive a higher priority than heretofore".
The report - which is the result of two years' consultation with Government and communities as well as the gathering of submissions - has its roots in the 1998 report from the National Crime Forum. That report said that without steps to tackle crime at its roots "the palliative and containment measures" would not succeed. The kernel of this report, said Mr White, was the proposed National Crime Prevention Model. This would have three strands, at local, county/city and national level.
"We are recommending that the model be established within the existing County/City Development Board (CDB) structure. A dedicated crime prevention sub-committee would be established within each of the 34 boards with a full-time person," said Mr White.
This person would be responsible for the crime prevention agenda in each area and liaise with their community on developing crime prevention plans.
The council then recommends the establishment of a national crime prevention co-ordination office led by a full-time executive to co-ordinate local plans.
The council says its recommendations should be undertaken on a pilot basis in three areas - one city and two counties - for a two-year period. This would be followed by an evaluation and then roll out to all 34 CDBs. "Our recommendations provide both a massive challenge and opportunity," Mr White acknowledged.
The report also highlights a gap between perceived policing needs as identified by gardaí and what local residents see as policing priorities. It calls on the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, to publish a time frame for the development of community policing structures.
Experience had shown, said Mr White, that the longer children remained in education the less likely they were to fall into a life of crime, and he called for greater use of early intervention measures with young people at risk of anti-social behaviour.
Commenting on the report's recommendations, Mr McDowell said he was investigating community policing in the context of forthcoming Garda legislation. "In the next few weeks I hope to bring to the public domain the outline of the new Garda structures that we have in mind and they will include a new local dimension to policing as a matter of statute," he said.
