Adults who groom children into crime to face up to five years in jail 

While current law already provides that an adult who causes or uses a child to commit a crime can generally be found guilty as the principal offender, it does not recognise the harm done to a child by drawing them into a world of criminality.

Adults convicted of grooming children into a life of crime will face up to five years in prison, under a new law to be announced on Friday by Justice Minister Helen McEntee.

The bill will make it an offence for an adult to compel, coerce, induce or invite a child to engage in criminal activity. The Government says the legislation is a key part of its efforts to prevent gangs leading children into a life of crime.

Under the bill, liability is being limited to adults to avoid further criminalising children, some of whom could influence other children to commit crime.

While current law already provides that an adult who causes or uses a child to commit a crime can generally be found guilty as the principal offender – meaning they can be punished as though they committed the crime themselves – it does not recognise the harm done to a child by drawing them into a world of criminality.

According to Ms McEntee, this new law is designed to address that harm directly. Those found guilty of the new offences face imprisonment of 12 months on summary conviction and up to five years on indictment. 

The child concerned does not have to be successful in carrying out the offence for the law to apply.

"We must tackle crime at all levels and in all areas of our society – from stopping the gang bosses committing the most awful crimes to preventing them leading our young into a life of crime," Ms McEntee told the Irish Examiner. 

Rooting crime out of our communities means we must show criminals that we are deadly serious about ensuring they cannot exploit our young for their own ends. 

"We are equally serious about ensuring that crime does not pass down through generations."

The new legislation will complement the ongoing work following the publication of the 'Greentown Report' in December 2016, which examined the influence of criminal networks on children in Ireland.

The report, produced at the School of Law in the University of Limerick, outlines how the influence of criminal networks increases the level of offending by a small number of children and entraps them in offending situations.