Grim statistics - Time to act on soaring murder rates

MANY people will remember a time when there was little more than a murder a year in this state, and that would then be the subject of sensational publicity extending over months, and in some cases years.

But now murders have become so commonplace that the focus shifts from one murder to another with such rapidity that the public has become desensitised to the horror.

In the past nine years, there have been 109 murders by use of firearms.

There have only been 18 convictions for those murders, a truly pathetic figure that means that more than eight out of 10 are getting away with such murders. But even that figure depicts a situation that is far removed from the reality of what is happening, because the problem is actually getting steadily worse.

Last year there were 21 gun murders, compared with four in 1998. In the four years, 2002-2005, there were 60 gun murders, compared with 37 in the four previous years. That amounted to an increase of 62% in just a four-year period.

There have already been 12 people murdered by shooting up to the end of last week, so we heading to set another record this year.

These statistics must not be tolerated.

Other statistics indicate that the gardaí have detected people responsible for 54 of the 109 gun murders. Some 35 of those people were prosecuted and 18 were subsequently convicted.

This means that about half of the murderers are detected but a third of them are not prosecuted, and only about half of those prosecuted are convicted. Thus, only one-third of those detected have actually been convicted. If the detected figure is accurate, even two-thirds of those detected get away with murder. This is a frightening figure.

Some impressive figures have been given for the detection rate of knife crimes, with 91% of the 81 knife murders between 2000 and 2005 being detected. But what was the conviction rate in relation to those detections? The detection rate in relation to murders by guns would seem to raise serious questions about relying on detection figures.

Justice Minister Michael McDowell argues that Ireland has one of “the lowest murder rates in the western world”. We have a much lower murder rate than Scotland, for example, but the most important comparison should not be with our neighbours, but with ourselves over the years.

In much earlier decades, when gun murders were more prevalent, those were usually categorised as political crimes. Drastic measures were implemented to tackle the problem then. Those measures included internment without trial and a requirement for people to account for their movements.

In effect, the right to silence was removed in such cases. The problem was tackled effectively, and hence this country developed a much lower murder rate that our closest neighbours.

While political organisations were largely responsible for gun offences in the past, it has since become largely the preserve of criminal elements, especially gangs. The detection rate of this form of crime has been quite low, and the conviction rate is even lower.

We need to know the reasons. If they are the result of intimidation, this should be addressed and tackled immediately because the problems are clearly growing.