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Travellers jailed for attacking Gardai
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Honestly? Yes I do.
There are certain parts of our community whose whole life is dedicated to stealing, robbing and burglerising the rest of the country.
And I so honestly believe that the majority of those crimes are committed by a small percentage of our population. One that we can't possibly understand because they are a completely different 'ethnicity' to the majority.
Just back from a wander over to the CSO. Let's go through the numbers.
Taking everything into account, there were 181,822 offenses committed in 2013
60% of those is 109,093.2
If we divide that by the estimated 40,000 Travellers (most social researchers consider the census' 30,000 to be an undercount) that's 2.7 crimes for every Traveller man, woman and child. But only if the babies and grannies pitch in, obviously
To be serious for a moment, you're right in thinking most crimes are committed by a small segment of the population, that's usually the way it works, such people are, by their nature, outliers.
The problem arises when you start denouncing a whole group of people as criminals because you know of a couple of bad members. As if their membership of that group is the only thing that matters, as if that's what makes them criminals.
For example, how would an Irish person react if, say a British person told them that "the Irish Community" had to "take responsibility for" the IRA ans "owed an apology"? I know what I'd say: "**** off, that's nothing to do with me." Would I be wrong to say that? After all, I'm not in the IRA and never supported it, so can blame for their actions be laid on me because I'm Irish?0 -
SparkySpitfire wrote: »Here you go bubblypop, I think you were a bit off with your 60% figure.
http://health.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/AITHS2010_TechnicalReport2_HR_PartC.pdf
In this prison health survey they count the number of travellers (male and female) and other Irish people on page 153:
So...320/3,666 = 8.7% ish (If my maths is correct!! :pac: ) Sure you were only around 51% off there.
That's just the number of travellers in prison, if I'm not mistaken?
That's not the number that have committed crime!
Obviously, the amount convicted would be different.
The same as any other part of the community.0 -
SparkySpitfire wrote: »So...320/3,666 = 8.7% ish (If my maths is correct!! :pac: ) Sure you were only around 51% off there.
Of course 60% was a ludicrous figure.
But given that travellers make up less than 1% of the population of Ireland then a figure of 8.7% of the prison population would be hugely disproportionate given their relatively small numbers.0 -
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BlaasForRafa wrote: »Of course 60% was a ludicrous figure.
But given that travellers make up less than 1% of the population of Ireland then a figure of 8.7% of the prison population would be hugely disproportionate given their relatively small numbers.
Oh yeah it is, totally agree there. It's clear that there's a problem. But bubblypop's argument was that while they're a minority of the population, they commit the majority of crime; a notion I wished to dispel. 0 -
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Just back from a wander over to the CSO. Let's go through the numbers.
Taking everything into account, there were 181,822 offenses committed in 2013
60% of those is 109,093.2
If we divide that by the estimated 40,000 Travellers (most social researchers consider the census' 30,000 to be an undercount) that's 2.7 crimes for every Traveller man, woman and child. But only if the babies and grannies pitch in, obviously
To be serious for a moment, you're right in thinking most crimes are committed by a small segment of the population, that's usually the way it works, such people are, by their nature, outliers.
The problem arises when you start denouncing a whole group of people as criminals because you know of a couple of bad members. As if their membership of that group is the only thing that matters, as if that's what makes them criminals.
For example, how would an Irish person react if, say a British person told them that "the Irish Community" had to "take responsibility for" the IRA ans "owed an apology"? I know what I'd say: "**** off, that's nothing to do with me." Would I be wrong to say that? After all, I'm not in the IRA and never supported it, so can blame for their actions be laid on me because I'm Irish?
With travellers there is often they do what is expected of them by their community. A person above mentioned they were laughed at for working then there would be other similar situations especially with the girls and marriage but yet they can have 100 convictions and nobody is laughing at them. They are a close knit community always worried about what others will think of them one minute and then all of a sudden they are as close as the north and south pole.
If you were part of a group that judged and expected people to join the IRA, treating them poorly or cutting them off if they didn't then you would have been part of the problem.0 -
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SparkySpitfire wrote: »Oh yeah it is, totally agree there. It's clear that there's a problem. But bubblypop's argument was that while they're a minority of the population, they commit the majority of crime; a notion I wished to dispel.
Oh yeah, I absolutely agree with you on that point, they'd need to have superpowers to commit that much crime lol.
But given the prison numbers I think it's a reasonable assumption to conclude that they probably commit a disproportionate number of crimes.0 -
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BlaasForRafa wrote: »By ignoring problems in certain communities then problems are allowed to fester and exacerbate, just look at the grooming issue in the pakistani/muslim communities in northern england.
Travellers have so many advocates willing to gloss over the problems that parts of the travellers create that they don't even have to acknowledge that they have/cause problems, let alone do something about them.
It's true that groups used to being attacked by outsiders can have a hard time admitting faults of their own. Take a look at Ireland after independence. We had deep-seated social problems, but we were never going to admit it when we were so busy proving to the world how much better off we were freed from empire. Visible signs of poverty, like unmarried mothers and destitute children couldn't be addressed because that would mean admitting they existed, so they were hidden away.
That said, saying that Travellers have to deal with Traveller problems assumes that there's a clear and obvious divide between "Traveller problems made by Travellers" and "Traveller problems made by the State". They actually link together and feed back into each other. Fixing them is frustrating and slow.
Groups like Pavee Point have actually made progress, though. Far more Travellers are finishing education now than there were 10 years ago. It's still not anywhere near the settled population, but it's a clear and measurable improvement.
I'll dig up some stats (can't remember which poster brought it up, but we already have loads of stats and we already know what the problems are) tomorrow if this thread hasn't been closed. For now I'm off to bed 0 -
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