Juvenile crime - Time State acted against young thugs

Efforts being made to cope with an alarming increase in juvenile crime are only a farce, according to probation officers.

Reported offences attributed to juveniles jumped by 42% in the two years from 2000 to 2002.

Sex offences by juveniles more than doubled, going up by 122%, while other serious assaults went up by 43.6%, and public order and drink-related offences have almost doubled in the same time. Juveniles are committing more and more serious crimes.

The conviction of four teenagers for the gang rape of a woman last week has provoked exasperated comments from probation officers working with juveniles.

That gang rape was an extreme case, but officials are being compelled to deal with more and more extreme cases. Three of the minors involved in the rape were on bail, while the fourth, gang leader Thomas O'Neill, was supposed to be locked up for three years following his conviction for aggravated burglary and other offences in December 2002.

A range of experts identified the boy as a high-risk offender by the age of 13. At 16 he already had 35 convictions. He was released a fortnight before his involvement in the gang rape in Co Clare in January of this year. The probation service was not informed of his early release. With young thugs terrorising housing estates, it is little wonder that our juvenile justice system is being decried as a farce.

The gardaí and court officials are powerless to act, because when these juveniles are sentenced to detention, there is no place to put them and they are promptly released to commit further crimes. It must seem to them that their age and government inaction affords them a licence to behave as they wish.

What is the Government waiting for lawless vigilantes to impose a perverted system of justice with the kind of punishment beatings that have blighted the peace process in the North?