Is Ireland's justice system lenient?

starkid

as another poster said its more that its inconsistent. But i think when we have people walking around with convictions numbering in the hundreds its also fair to say its lenient.

There's a whole host of issues around it. Take the idea of jails and that type of punishment not being a solution, for instance. People bang on about Norway and how perfect and progressive places like that are etc. Norway has a whole host of tough measures around release, legal fees, tagging, coummunity punishment and monitoring.So its not as black and white saying jails are not the answer. The reality is without their harsh system, the US would be far far worse, at least until they fix their social issues. Here in Ireland theres a tonne of issues around thinking that every person is fixable and deserves all their rights, even when they've basically forfeited them. One easy one to spot in the city centre is a major lack of visible proactive policing. If you don't want prisons or a proper police force, well then you're going to have to get something else.

A lack of any kind of electronic tagging. A lack of cctv. A lack of community policing. A lack of fines. Easy access to all sorts of free legal aid Ad infinitum. A huge social issue and inequality bang in the middle of the city centre compared to other capital cities. A very vocal fragmented left wing opposition in bedded in the very same communities. When was the last time you heard Mary Lou really speak out on some of these issues (seeing she's the td for the NIC)? she won't cause its her core base.

Its not just one thing. Its a whole host of problems. Within ten years i reckon we'll be paying a heavy price as much of Irish society gets even wealthier (relative to the dark days of say pre 1992) and ordered, and a select few get completely marginalized and disenfranchised. Many different parts of the capital will be no go zones for the average punter. In saying that it will be a long cycle for the gangs on their bikes to get to certain areas.

Yakov P. Golyadkin

gary550 wrote: »

I'd also propose anyone with child abuse images be sentenced to 13+ years minimum - no negotiation or suspending in part either.

So someone inadvertently downloads child abuse images and they're off to the Joy for 13 years? That doesn't seem very just.

Your other proposals are equally flawed.

jmayo

yoke wrote: »

Spaces in prisons could be freed up if we allowed people to volunteer for hard labour for a reduction in time served, which would in turn allow for tougher sentencing overall.

Lowering social welfare payments for repeat offenders might be another option.

Yet another one might be to impose large fines instead, and if they cannot pay, then arrange for it to be taken out of their estate/paycheck/social welfare bill/location of council house if they are housed by the council and have no estate.

Fines are a joke.
A lot of the time the ones meant to pay it are on social welfare and then offer to pay a few quid a week and the judge agrees to this.

The real crazy thing here is our population has dramatically increased.
Thus our school numbers have increased, our college places have increased, our hospital numbers have increased.
Granted the Irish way is to only increase them when facing no place to put people.

Everything bar jails have eventually tried to keep pace with population growth.
Our level of violent crime has increased dramatically and any of the do gooders that drags out some stat saying otherwise is twisting the truth.
Anyone old enough to remember the 1980s could atest to how long the likes of the Malcolm MacArthur case was top of the headlines.
Granted there were the political connections to the case, but it was still shocking for the entire country.
And yes we were used to republicans killing and to Northern Ireland daily atrocities.

Nowadays a violent murder, hell multiple murder is almost taken for granted unless it is particularly heinous like the Hawe case in Cavan.

And I would reckon someone can cherry pick how the murder rate has not dramatically increased over the years, because they chose to only go back as far as mid 2000s where it was very high and how it has gone down since.
But if go back further you will see it has increased.

The other thing that I bet can skew the figures is the number of cases which has only resulted in a manslaughter conviction, which is often a complete joke of a finding.

It often looks like you would have needed to have taken out an ad in the local paper stating your intentions before a verdict of murder is brought in.

yoke

I think you mean that “the current way that fines are done is a joke”, and giving the example of the couple of quid a week being taken out of a social welfare payment.

What would you say to a €100,000 fine for mugging someone, to be paid off by hard labour, ie. building a road to the value of €100,000 over the period of say 1 year?
Or alternatively, to raising the €100,000 by kicking you out of your south Dublin council house and relocating you to Mayo, thus generating €100,000 which the state can use for other things?
Or, if you own your own house, then attaching the €100,000 bill to your estate, and forcing a sale?

Based on a person I talked to who was in prison before for a short time, they weren’t deterred by prison at all, said it was like a school reunion where they met all their old mates from childhood. Anything’s got to be better than that, as a deterrent.

jmayo

yoke wrote: »

I think you mean that “the current way that fines are done is a joke”, and giving the example of the couple of quid a week being taken out of a social welfare payment.

What would you say to a €100,000 fine for mugging someone, to be paid off by hard labour, ie. building a road to the value of €100,000 over the period of say 1 year?
Or alternatively, to raising the €100,000 by kicking you out of your south Dublin council house and relocating you to Mayo, thus generating €100,000 which the state can use for other things?
Or, if you own your own house, then attaching the €100,000 bill to your estate, and forcing a sale?

Hey you can keep your Dublin skangers where they are and stop trying to foist the problems off on someone else.

You remind me of those who are really in favour of asylum seekers and travellers because they will never have to deal with the after effects.

I have no problem with hefty fines if they are paid.
What is the use of fining someone 5,000 nevermind 100,000 when they will only be repaid in €10 weekly installments.

And yes hard labour and real community service I wholeheartedly agree with.

yoke

jmayo wrote: »

You remind me of those who are really in favour of asylum seekers and travellers because they will never have to deal with the after effects.

Asylum seekers and Travelers are not criminals, and should not be treated as criminals.

Ive been friends with an asylum seeker before and have directly witnessed how they added value to this society, so I’ve dealt with the “after effects” of asylum seekers.

I’ve also dealt with travelers, and while I’ve had a couple of negative experiences, I’ve had far more positive experiences with them too, if we’re keeping stats. I wouldn’t hesitate to deal with someone just because they were a traveler.

How many asylum seekers have you known personally?

How many travelers have you done business with?

I’m not saying there aren’t any criminals among them, but there are plenty of criminals and chancers among the general population too. We should be focusing on criminals when dealing out punishment rather than tarring everyone with the same brush, it’s much more effective when you actually selectively punish those that have been “bad”..

.42.

They should simply remove the Grey area of the law and replace it with 0 tolerance

Law > Break Law > Penalty

Remove the if and buts and make it mandatory penalties.

Mike Murdock

.42. wrote: »

Ireland's justice system is not lenient, Its inconsistent.

X breaks the law and gets a suspended sentence
Y breaks the same law and goes to Prison

Judicial discretion.

It needs to be abolished.

Mike Murdock

jmayo wrote: »

There are needless horrific deaths thanks to our very lenient justice system.

Some of the most famous ones are visitors to our shores Manuela Riedo and Bettina Poeschel, but there are also natives like Nancy Nolan and Sylvia Roche Kelly.

These deaths could all have been prevented if the murdering scum had been in jail for the crimes they had already committed and if there wasn't a fooking joke of bail laws in this country.

And in two of these cases the judges that allowed them free should be struck off for gross negligence.

Worse still in the Manuela case, the mother****er that raped and killed her was out on bail for raping another foreign girl.

A sick joke.

gary550

Yakov P. Golyadkin wrote: »

So someone inadvertently downloads child abuse images and they're off to the Joy for 13 years? That doesn't seem very just.

Your other proposals are equally flawed.

There is a difference between inadvertent and deliberate. How many people do you see in front of the courts who were caught with 2 or 3 child abuse images on their phones or computers? - Very little is your answer there.

People are usually caught with thousands for which the punishment for is absolutely abysmal.

As for my other proposals they might be equally flawed in your opinion but I'd rather a rapist or murderer be locked up for vastly longer sentences than to get out and do it again.

Varik

baldshin wrote: »

Fair enough. I'll revise that to somewhat offset! Increased prison spaces would also free up a huge amount of Garda hours wasted on repeat offenders, enabling a much better policing service to communities, as an aside.

I think you were right the first time.
The free legal aid would only be the money associated with the defence and the Legal Aid Board's costs to provide that.

As said the guards, the DPP, and all the costs a trial actually involves with all the people required. Look at the total costs that get reported in the news for any big civil action.

The damage to our society averted, and portion of the population taking a different route and becoming something other than a drain on everyone else.

Geuze

In terms of leniency, I always think of Eamon Lynch.

480+ convictions


https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-foyle-west-38768312#:~:text=A%20drunk%20driver%20with%20483,in%20County%20Donegal%20in%202012.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/mother-says-donegal-driver-who-killed-son-fooled-court-1.2954214


I would love to know what would happen to somebody in FR, DE, IT, ES if they behaved like Eamon Lynch?

jmayo

yoke wrote: »

Asylum seekers and Travelers are not criminals, and should not be treated as criminals.

Ive been friends with an asylum seeker before and have directly witnessed how they added value to this society, so I’ve dealt with the “after effects” of asylum seekers.

I’ve also dealt with travelers, and while I’ve had a couple of negative experiences, I’ve had far more positive experiences with them too, if we’re keeping stats. I wouldn’t hesitate to deal with someone just because they were a traveler.

How many asylum seekers have you known personally?

How many travelers have you done business with?

I’m not saying there aren’t any criminals among them, but there are plenty of criminals and chancers among the general population too. We should be focusing on criminals when dealing out punishment rather than tarring everyone with the same brush, it’s much more effective when you actually selectively punish those that have been “bad”..

Ah bless.
I take it you haven't been watching much news lately then. :rolleyes:


I think we have found the undertstatement of the year here folks ...

How many travelers have you done business with?

I’m not saying there aren’t any criminals among them,

jmayo

Mike Murdock wrote: »

Worse still in the Manuela case, the mother****er that raped and killed her was out on bail for raping another foreign girl.

A sick joke.

Ehh you are wrong.
Sadly I know too much about that bast***.

He was brought in for assaulting and trying to strangle his girlfriend.
The Gardai asked to judge not to give him bail, because his girlfriend was afraid of him and he was the prime suspect in the rape of the French girl.

But he was and within two months had raped and killed Manuela Reido.

Oh and he was already convicted of leading a gang that kicked a poor guy to death in Eyre Square and had been in jail for manslaughter.

The biggest piece of scum to have walked the streets of Galway.

gmisk

Geuze wrote: »

In terms of leniency, I always think of Eamon Lynch.

480+ convictions


https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-foyle-west-38768312#:~:text=A%20drunk%20driver%20with%20483,in%20County%20Donegal%20in%202012.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/mother-says-donegal-driver-who-killed-son-fooled-court-1.2954214


I would love to know what would happen to somebody in FR, DE, IT, ES if they behaved like Eamon Lynch?

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/serial-offender-eamonn-lynch-tried-9808361
.... Christ...

Honestly what can you do with someone like this? It would be worth the cost to just have them in jail for life

Hqrry113

yoke wrote: »

Asylum seekers and Travelers are not criminals, and should not be treated as criminals.

Ive been friends with an asylum seeker before and have directly witnessed how they added value to this society, so I’ve dealt with the “after effects” of asylum seekers.

I’ve also dealt with travelers, and while I’ve had a couple of negative experiences, I’ve had far more positive experiences with them too, if we’re keeping stats. I wouldn’t hesitate to deal with someone just because they were a traveler.

How many asylum seekers have you known personally?

How many travelers have you done business with?

I’m not saying there aren’t any criminals among them, but there are plenty of criminals and chancers among the general population too. We should be focusing on criminals when dealing out punishment rather than tarring everyone with the same brush, it’s much more effective when you actually selectively punish those that have been “bad”..

It's street wise NEVER to deal with travellers, there might be one or two decent ones no doubt.

Hqrry113

There are some cases where I think the system is too lenient but I think our justice system is on the right track, generally the people in prison belong there rather than people who are not bad people getting locked up or people on the verge of being bad people getting locked up for a short time and then that pushes them over the edge and turns them into bad people, that then starts a cycle of having far more scumbags out and about that were created by harsh sentencing rather than giving them a second chance.

juno10353

I believe that the youths who are behaving mob style, creating havoc on Dart line, in parks, etc, assaulting others, stealing bikes scooters, mobiles etc, should be charged and made do highly visible community service. They should be cleaning the parks, removing graffiti, helping tidy towns volunteers, etc. All in high viz jackets.

Cilldara_2000

juno10353 wrote: »

I believe that the youths who are behaving mob style, creating havoc on Dart line, in parks, etc, assaulting others, stealing bikes scooters, mobiles etc, should be charged and made do highly visible community service. They should be cleaning the parks, removing graffiti, helping tidy towns volunteers, etc. All in high viz jackets.

But their human rights would be violated!

Infini

[Deleted User] wrote: »

A friend and I were getting a taxi to McCarran airport in Las Vegas. Our driver was a lady and we were chatting to her. She mentioned her son had just been sent to jail for a 5 year stretch. We were curious and asked what he'd done. He was caught with some weed when he was 16. When he was 18 he stole a car, and most recently he stole a DVD from a shop and was caught. Nevada operates the three strike rule, so the third conviction meant a minimum sentence of 5 years.

We were discussing it in the bar waiting for the flight and agreed it sounds very harsh but also agreed, how f&%king stupid do you have to be to steal a DVD when you already have 2 convictions, and a 3rd means jail.

Meanwhile in Ireland, we have lads wondering around with 50+ convictions and havn't spent a day in prison.

There is surely a happy medium. If 3 convictions is too low, can we agree that after 10 convictions they should see 2 years in prison?

US system is the opposite of ours in a sense, ours comes down too light on some of them while the US is akin to a legalised slave system that throws people into jail for minor crimes when it would be alot easier to rehabilitate them.

Witcher

juno10353 wrote: »

I believe that the youths who are behaving mob style, creating havoc on Dart line, in parks, etc, assaulting others, stealing bikes scooters, mobiles etc, should be charged and made do highly visible community service. They should be cleaning the parks, removing graffiti, helping tidy towns volunteers, etc. All in high viz jackets.

Yeah that's great...quick question...how do you actually force them do that?

When they just refuse point blank...then what?

From another thread where the same idea was put forward;

Witcher wrote: »

and when they point blank refuse to do it...what then? Imprison them? There are no prison spaces that's why alternatives are being suggested in the first place.

These things sound great in theory but the practicality of it isn't really well thought out by the people suggesting it.

Vestiapx

.42. wrote: »

Ireland's justice system is not lenient, Its inconsistent.

X breaks the law and gets a suspended sentence
Y breaks the same law and goes to Prison

Chromosomes ?

Leinster90

Witcher wrote: »

Yeah that's great...quick question...how do you actually force them do that?

When they just refuse point blank...then what?

From another thread where the same idea was put forward;


These things sound great in theory but the practicality of it isn't really well thought out by the people suggesting it.

Their sentence in prison gets automatically doubled if they refuse to work. If they still refuse, it gets trebled etc.

Witcher

Leinster90 wrote: »

Their sentence in prison gets automatically doubled if they refuse to work. If they still refuse, it gets trebled etc.

Again, great idea on paper...back to the real world...where are the prison spaces for this?

Witcher

Witcher wrote: »

Again, great idea on paper...back to the real world...where are the prison spaces for this?

Good point. We should build more prisons.

juno10353

When all the borstals, Spike Island etc., were closed ..... rightly ..... they were not replaced with systems to deal with young offenders. We are great in Ireland for throwing out the baby with the bath water.

spurious

Martin Nolan gave 20 months (MONTHS) for attacking a toddler in a pram with a blowtorch. A blowtorch to the face of a two year old.

https://www.thejournal.ie/man-jailed-burning-toddler-blow-torch-5440723-May2021/

Words fail me.

Mike Murdock

spurious wrote: »

Martin Nolan gave 20 months (MONTHS) for attacking a toddler in a pram with a blowtorch. A blowtorch to the face of a two year old.

https://www.thejournal.ie/man-jailed-burning-toddler-blow-torch-5440723-May2021/

Words fail me.

Ah, the poor cratur...

Monahan said Brennan was diagnosed with autism when he was a child and Asperger’s Syndrome when he was a teenager. He started using cannabis which may have led to him developing schizophrenia.

Monahan said his client “regrets what happened” and had expressed his regret to his psychiatrist.

Ronaldinho

3.5 years for manslaughter. Like, how pi$$ed would you be if before you passed away after an assault, someone told you that the fella that did it would only get 3.5 years.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/kildare-man-arrested-over-alleged-assaults-in-australia-1.4368702

Ronaldinho

Or 20 months for burning a baby's face with a blowtorch.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/circuit-court/man-jailed-for-burning-toddler-s-face-with-mini-blowtorch-1.4568525

Just go full Saudi on the cnut and chop his hands off.