How could Limerick's crime problem be tackled?

faustngretchen

Whoop, I found out how to post polls, so here's one related to an earlier thread of mine in which the general opinion was that Limerick has a more or less serious crime problem and that there's not enough or not the right things done against it.

What do you think should be done in order to reduce Limerick's crime rate and thus maybe change Limerick's bad image as a violent and dangerous city?

Poll away, lads!

gaf1983

I would say a combination of all of the above. However, unfortunately I believe the following option to be true "There is a lot done already. There will always be a certain amount of scumbags in this city." (And indeed every city in the world). One of the problems is that when often when there are public amenities such as sports grounds they are often vandalised by the minority to the detriment of the majority no matter what - see Thomond Park, Richmond Rugby Clubhouse, Rathbane Golf Club, St Michael's Boat Club - all these sportsgrounds have suffered from serious vandalism down through the years. Maybe building facilities for young people to use other than just sports grounds might help to lure people away from crime, but I feel no matter how much money is poured into new facilities there will always be troublemakers. Probably one way to work towards a solution would be to study other communities that have overcome serious crime problems and find out what they did right and try and emulate them here.

limerick_man

Er.. public transport will only help if theres stuff to do in the city!
We have enough problems within the health service then to add druggies!
I dont think the media being positive about Limerick crime... will stop Limerick crime!
We need more officers, and we also need more inforcement!
More going on in the city!!!! That would be key!

The Lopper

A combination of the above.

Most importantly though, the Gardaí need the powers to deal with this. The law at the moment supports the perpetrator far too much. Longer sentences and easier to make convictions. If there is one thing i admire about USA, it is that if you wave a gun at a cop, he'll shoot you. This is what law enforcement should be like. May sound heavy handed, but thats my opinion

ricey

gaf1983 wrote:

I would say a combination of all of the above. However, unfortunately I believe the following option to be true "There is a lot done already. There will always be a certain amount of scumbags in this city." (And indeed every city in the world). One of the problems is that when often when there are public amenities such as sports grounds they are often vandalised by the minority to the detriment of the majority no matter what - see Thomond Park, Richmond Rugby Clubhouse, Rathbane Golf Club, St Michael's Boat Club - all these sportsgrounds have suffered from serious vandalism down through the years. Maybe building facilities for young people to use other than just sports grounds might help to lure people away from crime, but I feel no matter how much money is poured into new facilities there will always be troublemakers. Probably one way to work towards a solution would be to study other communities that have overcome serious crime problems and find out what they did right and try and emulate them here.

Gotta agree a lot has been done already and crime is way down on the last few years.

faustngretchen

Come on lads, I need more votes for the poll to get some kind of representativity. (<-does that word exist?!?)

Do me the favour, my exams are at stake!

MikeTyson

hey german guy.. they could get more shades here and they should get the gaurds to watch out for low level crime!! too easy to rob stuff around limerick

limerick_man

Thats true (P.S... in other words we need more police officers)

boardy

Limerick should take the Giuliani approach to crime.
I lived in New York City when Dinkins was mayor and it was a horrible place to live. Crime was rampant, riots were breaking out, and the thugs were ruling the city.

But then along comes Rudolph Giuliani and by the end of his term, the transformation of the city was unbelievable. His approach was to arrest people for petty crimes e.g. jumping the turnstile in the subway. If you didn’t have a record, then you were just issued a ticket. But it was found that most of the people that were committing these petty crimes were also committing far more serious crimes. And they were locked away, which led to a major drop in crime.

I remember being down in Greenwich Village one day and a guy tried to rob this woman’s bag. The next thing you know, the two bums that were in front of me (and reeking of drink) jumped on the culprit and arrested him. They were 2 undercover cops. You just didn’t know who was an undercover cop in the city at the time. Giuliani hired many more cops. You could always rely on a cop car showing up within a minute if there was trouble on the street.

There was a major culture shock for me when I left New York and spent a year in Dublin, with people being assaulted in broad daylight without a Garda in sight.

limerick_man

yeah, america is great

Monaleen F.C.

People don't get assaulted out on the street here. Petty crime is on the rise, but in general things aren't too bad. It is too hard to implement initiatives to improve deprived areas in Limerick. For instance, The Moyross bus route. Gone now because it cost too much to repair damage being done to the buses, torn seats, damge from things being thrown at moving buses etc.

A greater garda presence, stricter laws against petty crime and phychologists in secondary schools (to identify mental instability in students early) are what I think is needed. But it's not going to happen any time soon.

limerick_man

There is a moyross bus... Pineview!!
It goes Pineview - Limerick City - Raheen (can be boarded at Henry Street)
304 (i think) because raheen people get off and then it stops there and goes on..

Yep, agree with you, they need to get stricter ..

mysterious

There's is also problem with gardai patrol and the lack of gardai in certain area's such as Moyross for example

Raheen and Castletroy have a combined population of 35,000 and it dosn't have a garda sub station, Castetroy have been crying out for a substaion for years , no actions taken on that to date.
It dosent make sense to have 2 garda stations, one a substation in Roxboro which handles just about the local area and supposdly hinterland, and Henry street station to cover the entire city and Caherdavin across the Shannon
There should be at least three gardas stations in Limerick.
Many locals have been complaining about the lenght of time it takes for the gardai to come out to Castletroy region etc..

Its totally unacceptabe and it proves to me that the government don't give a damn!
William O Dea should be given a bucket of water over his head on many issues
hes a total softball on certain issues of importance to Limerick.

Secondly if the Media focused more on positive aspects of this great city then the city would be more confident and would be able to take crime matter more into there hands, not scaremongering and sterotyping which is affecting the performance and image to this city.
Making people paranoid to out on the streets,
dampen the gardai's reputation,
exaaggeration the crime issues

why isnt the Medai saying that the crime situation is under a stable and acceptable control.
why is'nt the medai saying that there hasn't been a Murder in Limerick in nearly 14 months
why is'nt the medai saying that the Gardai have a decent record comparabe to the national average?
why is'nt the media saying that Limerick is been negllected by the government??
or even the media themselves!!

Turner

The Gardai are doing an amazing job in limerick considering the resources they have and the threats and attacks they receive.

The current Judiciary and district court system especially needs to be addressed. Stricter penalties, which are actually allowed for in law are not being used.

Repeat public order and assault offenders are not being given prison time. Most receive a 50 euro fine on account of "they were out of their head at the time judge" .Most of these wrong do'ers know the law inside out and know it cannot really affect them.

The Gardai's hands are tied, lets say they respond to a street fight with 3 or 4 patrol cars with known persistant offenders. The officers get injured, their vehicles get damaged, the scum are arrested and brought to court and fined 50-150 euro fines. And instead of paying the fines they choose to do 3 or 7 days in prison in default of the fine.

For persistant offenders they should be given time 3-5 months in prison, by law they are allowed get up to 6 months.

If you dont believe me go into any district court and see what goes on for yourself. Its free and you can just walk in.

Amazotheamazing

Agree with the above 2 posts, as long as people continue to praise Willie O'Dea for being a very average politician he'll have no incentive to change things. For example, why is the Mayorstone Garda station only open office hours, why isn't it 24 hour? Why has Willie O'Dea spoken out against the proposed boundary extention? Why are there 74 unused and boarded up houses in Moyross and Southill?

Willie O'Dea is very good at local issues, like getting street lights fixed, getting medical cards etc, but he has delievered no "big project" to Limerick, look at all O'Donoghue has given Kerry, or how much Michael D. Higgins gave to Galway when he was minister for Arts (where do you think they got the cultural capital moniker?), or P. Flynn gave Castlebar in his time. O'Dea has done nothing to promote Limerick on a national level.

And as long as his very averageness gets him plaudits I don't see any incentive to do so.

limerick_man

mysterious wrote:

why is'nt the medai saying that there hasn't been a Murder in Limerick in nearly 14 months

Oh seriously... imagine the slagging we would get, hell I'd join in!
Not killing anyone for 14 months isnt something that you should get a pat on the back for!!!
I'm sure they will mention are living streak when the next guy gets killed

Rozie

There's **** all to do. That needs fixing.

mysterious

I'm not following the last 2 posts, but I will assume that you are a bit off the agenda and taken a different perspective on what I stated. I'm not boasting the fact, >>"No murders in the last 14 months" it was a statement I know it seems over emphasized but that give's people a glimpse of what is true and not what isn't. Comment I stated, (I agree) like that is sadly at that level due to the pressure and bad image Limerick faces day in and day out.

The Media do the same but in the exact opposite in a negative point of view.
They will also media will portray a bad image and show Limerick crime in only a negative way etc, there is good and bad about every issue.

If there is a positive fact about Limerick and it’s not even significant and not mentioned, I have no reason not to point it out, nor anyone else, it is fair to say. The media are well able to use selective language on minuet details that are not significant but yet make national headlines???? Powerful stuff.

I want to give people another side of the story! OK...

Nothing of extravagance!

In order for the Crime issues to be dealt with
We need to realise what’s fantasy and reality. Change our bad image, which is already happening.
People should be not be afraid of walking out their front door thinking about what happened on the news relating to an maybe a violent incident that might of occurred on a Saturday night, when they could also think of oh there is ice skating on at xmas, Is it not right to tell people limerick doesn’t have a bad crime rate or whether there hasn’t been a murder in such and such time?

Amazotheamazing

Rozie wrote:

There's **** all to do. That needs fixing.

Rozie, like I said on the UL board, it's up to you to entertain yourself, same as it is anywhere. Get involved in something, put yourself into something, whether it's drama, the upcoming poetry festival, the music scene, sports, go to the Art Gallery to see the new exhibitions, or to the Hunt muesum to see the Irish Artist exhibition, get a job in a pub, cafe, restaurant, shop, interact. Start busking, train for a marathon, triathalon, meet people, form a band, do a night course to learn russian, volunteer for a charity, join a debating society, become a student politician or a thai kick boxing champion. Maybe write a novel, maybe a series of Hemingwayesque short stories, re-invent yourself as F. Scott FitzGerald, memorise the gospels and shriek them from on top of a car on O'Connell street, only wear purple, or saffron. Get a puppy, or a parrot so you can teach it to swear, go to the monday night Savoy 2 series, drink cough bottle and skittles. Start a cottage industry selling muffins at the market each Saturday, get a slot on student radio, Don't be expecting someone else to entertain you, this isn't a circus.

I'm not saying there's loads to do in Limerick, it's a dull enough place, but as Paul Weller told us, "It's up to us to change this town called Malice". I know you want to move to Cork, and thats cool, it's a bigger town etc, but come on and try enjoy yourself while your in Limerick, you can make a difference.

mysterious

A place is only amazing if do amazing things there and with your life, If there is something just not going right it is otherwise reflecting an image of yourself. I agree with amazingoamazing on all points

The river Shannon is still going to keep flowing! whether your there or not
People and you make a city, its not made for you, neither is Cork.
Btw that attitude is not good either...

Why don't you go walk by the river Shannon, you might see what nature has to offer?? One of Ireland's finest waterways at your doorstep.