Crime
Rethinking Criminal Justice - Tackling the Real Causes of Crime
As a practising criminal lawyer, I believe passionately in the need for a radical overhaul of the criminal justice system. I believe that public policy on crime should not be based on quick-fix ’solutions’ or simplistic slogans. Instead, the real economic and social causes of crime must be tackled, through an effective and coherent long-term policy that does not trample on our hard-won civil liberties. In 1998, I was the co-author of a major study into the links between crime and poverty, published in Bacik, I. and O’Connell, M. (eds), Crime and Poverty in Ireland. Dublin: Round Hall Press/Sweet & Maxwell, 1998. More recently, I have written on the need to ensure fairer and more consistent sentencing policy, and on the proposed extension of the powers of the European Union into the criminal justice area. I will work for the following changes in our criminal justice policy:
- An effective police complaints system, modelled on the Northern Ireland Ombudsman’s office.
- A coherent sentencing policy based on the principles of rehabilitation of offenders and reparation/restorative justice for victims.
- Better resourcing of the probation service and of community based sanctions.
- Greater development of the Drugs Court project for rehabilitation of heroin addicts.
