Why is there such a hysteria about crime in Ireland?

My name is URL · 01-05-2011 06:29PM #1

With two threads presently on the front page of AH (arming all Gardai, and keeping DNA records), and the many others which are posted here almost every day about crime and scumbags and so forth, it's obvious that there is a hysteria amongst people when it comes to these matters.

Crime rates in Ireland are far lower than many of the countries which people use as examples of what we should aspire to.

From here

[B]Total crimes per capita[/B]

2. New Zealand - 105.881 per 1,000 people
3. Finland - 101.526 per 1,000 people
8. United States - 80.0645 per 1,000 people
11. Germany - 75.9996 per 1,000 people
12. Canada - 75.4921 per 1,000 people
..
32. Ireland - 20.2376 per 1,000 people

25% of the world's incarcerated are in the US.. roughly 1 in every 32 people are in jail, and yet crime rates there continue to dwarf that of Ireland -

Robberies per capita -

US - 1.38527 per 1,000 people
Ireland - 0.601096 per 1,000 people

Burglaries per capita -

US - 7.09996 per 1,000 people
Ireland - 5.73755 per 1,000 people

Assaults per capita -

US - 7.56923 per 1,000 people
Ireland - 2.47037 per 1,000 people

Rapes per capita -

US - 0.301318 per 1,000 people
Ireland - 0.0542829 per 1,000 people

Murders per capita -

US - 0.042802 per 1,000 people
Ireland - 0.00946215 per 1,000 people

Considering the argument which is often put forward about how armed police and harsher sentencing means less crime, why is it that crime levels are still so high there?

inb4Overheal =p This is not designed to be an anti-US thread..

Spunge · 01-05-2011 06:31PM

I agree, death to america !

KittyeeTrix · 01-05-2011 06:32PM

In fairness, I don't think a few threads on an internet discussion forum equates to "hysteria"....

mikom · 01-05-2011 06:34PM

Fear is used to pass laws and keep the proles under control.

Seloth · 01-05-2011 06:35PM

I'll put it how my mother said it to me.

When she was growing up murder was virtually unheard of...bu now you hear of two-three each time the news is on.

And as well as that Irish people are Bitchy :pac:

yoshytoshy · 01-05-2011 06:36PM

If we had more garda ,there would be an increase in those figures.

peasant · 01-05-2011 06:37PM

a few surprises further down the table

# 35 Romania: 16.4812 per 1,000 people

# 53 Colombia: 4.98654 per 1,000 people
# 59 India: 1.63352 per 1,000 people

galwayrush · 01-05-2011 06:39PM

Crime is where it's at, good growth potential in a recession...:pac:

My name is URL · 01-05-2011 06:39PM

peasant wrote: »

a few surprises further down the table

Well Colombia has a pretty fcuked up judicial system so the figures there are unlikely to be realistic.

thetonynator · 01-05-2011 06:40PM

peasant wrote: »

a few surprises further down the table

Showing perhaps that this is not a list of crimes per 1000 capita, but crimes detected per 1000 capita . . .?

Or else it's a measure of the honesty of police forces worldwide in compiling the data.

Wibbs · 01-05-2011 06:42PM

It's gaol, not jail, but I digress....

The yanks damn near incarcerate on sight. It's a slightly bonkers puritanical cultural thing for them, only partly to do with the crime rate. Handy for some too as the prisoners are essentially slave labour

I would agree though, or crime rates are very low. Ireland is by and large a very safe country to live in. Like I said on the "yanks get robbed at tourist site shocker" we may have scum but be thankful they're not as really scummy and vicious as some elsewhere. Even the paramilitaries at their best aren't as bad. Ten years of the troubles wouldn't be far off a year in Mexico, with added rapes(as they're rarely reported and punishments are pretty much nil) thrown in.

InReality · 01-05-2011 06:45PM

depends how crime rates are recorded though. might not be comparing like with like.
Agree with you about hype though.
The simple fix for Ireland is to give community service to non-violent short-term offenders, this is rarely mentioned.

Naikon · 01-05-2011 06:47PM

**** all else to moan about apart from the economy.

Chinasea · 01-05-2011 06:52PM

I disagree - I think this country is under siege by crime and I don't buy into the argument that most of it is 'only petty crime' - there is nothing petty about being mugged, finding an intruder in your bedroom, having your car robbed, etc.

There is an element of "under class" in this country (not my words) who run riot, contribute nothing, who break laws, terrorise anyone they feel like it and nobody sticks up to them not even the law .......most of this so called petty crime would not be tolerated in the US for instance.

We don’t have the policing capability to enforce the countless laws that exist. As a victim of ‘petty crime’ I for one don’t find anything hysterical about this report.

My name is URL · 01-05-2011 07:00PM

fluffyorganic1 wrote: »

In fairness, I don't think a few threads on an internet discussion forum equates to "hysteria"....

Look at the moral panic that erupted when Larry Murphy was released.. if that's not hysteria then I don't know what is. Feckin mobs showing up at premises where he was reported to be staying, and the constant media hype surrounding the whole thing.

Do you not think that the whole criminal/scumbag thing in Ireland is massively overplayed? I'm not saying that no problems exist, just that we are not in as bad a position as some would like to believe we are.

Dudess · 01-05-2011 07:24PM

fluffyorganic1 wrote: »

In fairness, I don't think a few threads on an internet discussion forum equates to "hysteria"....

Still though, you'd swear Ireland was like Brazil or Haiti the way some peeps in their nice houses in nice areas here go on. In the Cork City forum, people are constantly going on about how rough Cork is - now I'm not exactly "street" or "ghetto" but Cork is seriously un-rough (apart from the usual stuff that everywhere experiences and can be avoided).

I personally think some people like to go on about problems that don't exist.

KittyeeTrix · 01-05-2011 07:29PM

Dudess wrote: »

I personally think some people like to go on about problems that don't exist.

Your right with regards to some people. I grew up in the Westdide area of Galway and honestly some posts describing it in the Galway forum make it sound like Crompton:eek:

Overactive imagination some people have:)

mikom · 01-05-2011 07:32PM

fluffyorganic1 wrote: »

I grew up in the Westdide area of Galway and honestly some posts describing it in the Galway forum make it sound like Crompton:eek:

In the city, the city of Crompton
We keep it rockin!
We keep it rockin!

Lol

cherryghost · 01-05-2011 07:33PM

Our scumbags per capita is far higher though

mikemac · 01-05-2011 07:35PM

Those statistics are for reported and detected crime
If people have little confidence in the gardai they might not bother to report it at all

Like if my motorcycle was vandalized three times by the local scum and every time the gardai did nothing. Never replied to letters even when the pulse number was given.
Took away a panel to the Phoenix Park for fingerprints and "mislaid" it :rolleyes: No news on compensation for losing my property

Asked for updates, got fobbed off. Not expecting the CSI treatment, even a phone call would do

Next time.....why bother going to them?

If your wing mirror gets kicked off at weekends would you report it every single time? Even a fourth time?
How many assualts outside a chip shop get reported? Certainly not every one

Crime is vastly higher then those statistics and all statistics can be massaged and altered

Logical Fallacy · 01-05-2011 07:45PM

feelingstressed wrote: »

Those statistics are for reported and detected crime
If people have little confidence in the gardai they might not bother to report it at all

Like if my motorcycle was vandalized three times by the local scum and every time the gardai did nothing. Never replied to letters even when the pulse number was given.
Took away a panel to the Phoenix Park for fingerprints and "mislaid" it :rolleyes: No news on compensation for losing my property

Asked for updates, got fobbed off. Not expecting the CSI treatment, even a phone call would do

Next time.....why bother going to them?

If your wing mirror gets kicked off at weekends would you report it every single time? Even a fourth time?
How many assualts outside a chip shop get reported? Certainly not every one

Crime is vastly higher then those statistics and all statistics can be massaged and altered

So are they only higher for Ireland or would the same issues not affect all other countries making the issue moot?

mikemac · 01-05-2011 07:48PM

Of course the statistics in all countries are incorrect and if crime isn't reported or detected it stays off the reports

Was only posting about Ireland, I didn't compare Ireland to anywhere else.

DonkeyStyle \o/ · 01-05-2011 08:15PM

Oooh, we're #10 in the world on car thefts per captia... g'wan the mad lads!

Terry · 01-05-2011 08:41PM

Greatest country in the world.

Bountiful food supplies, moderate weather and only small scale natural disasters.
Those who are homeless are generally in that position because they didn't believe they could become addicted to drugs.

Yeah, our government is corrupt, but this is what happens when most people vote for the same parties over and over again.
What's that? FG are now in power? They're the same as FF. How can people not see that?

We make up less than 1,000th of the population of the planet, but we have it better than 99.99% of the others.

We don't live in a dictatorship. Ok, it's similar because most people keep voting for the same clowns, but at least you have the choice to make the wrong decision.
We're not at war with anyone.
We have low corporate tax, which attracts foreign investors who create jobs.

Yeah, we're in a hole at the moment, but we will get out of it.
You can sit there and be negative and then praise England, Canada, U.S.A. Oz, NZ or whatever, but we will always end up in a better position than those countries. Mostly because the whiners tend to leave and take their negativity with them, rather than trying to help their own country.

Fremen · 01-05-2011 08:51PM

Terry wrote: »

Those who are homeless are generally in that position because they didn't believe they could become addicted to drugs.

Most homeless people are mentally ill, not drug addicts.

Dudess · 01-05-2011 08:53PM

That's not to say there aren't pockets of Ireland where people's lives are made a misery by criminal elements, but most of the whining about crime here is done by people who haven't a clue what it's like to actually experience intimidation in their homes and immediate surroundings on a regular basis.

thetonynator · 01-05-2011 09:37PM

Terry wrote: »

Greatest country in the world.

Bountiful food supplies, moderate weather and only small scale natural disasters.
Those who are homeless are generally in that position because they didn't believe they could become addicted to drugs.

Yeah, our government is corrupt, but this is what happens when most people vote for the same parties over and over again.
What's that? FG are now in power? They're the same as FF. How can people not see that?

We make up less than 1,000th of the population of the planet, but we have it better than 99.99% of the others.

We don't live in a dictatorship. Ok, it's similar because most people keep voting for the same clowns, but at least you have the choice to make the wrong decision.
We're not at war with anyone.
We have low corporate tax, which attracts foreign investors who create jobs.

Yeah, we're in a hole at the moment, but we will get out of it.
You can sit there and be negative and then praise England, Canada, U.S.A. Oz, NZ or whatever, but we will always end up in a better position than those countries. Mostly because the whiners tend to leave and take their negativity with them, rather than trying to help their own country.

Post of the day IMO . . . except small scale natural disasters is a bit of an overstatement, a few inches of snow on the runway in Dublin Airport and the whole country panicked.

Wibbs · 01-05-2011 10:16PM

cherryghost wrote: »

Our scumbags per capita is far higher though

I honestly wouldn't agree. No way. I've been around(missus!) and have seen scumbags that on their own would have the worst sink estate in Limerick peeing themselves.

Now this is just my take, but where I think we do differ is that our scum are more mobile and are more "classless". If you live in say I dunno, Paris. And you're some middle class bourgeois chap or chapess. You can go most way through life never seeing or dealing with crims if you stay in your "patch". Most capital cities have "bad" areas, some really fcuking bad. You don't want to be the wrong end of Barcelona of a night..., but the dodgy bastards tend to stay in them. In Ireland it's nowhere near as clear cut. You could be knifed in Dalkey(witnessed it happen) and on the same night your twin could be having the craic and cadging smokes from some blokes in Sheriff street(been there too). It's one of the things I like about us, background is really no indication at all. I would say that's less the case with a few foreign climes, though you will always find some sound people everywhere.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 01-05-2011 10:55PM

Seloth wrote: »

I'll put it how my mother said it to me.

When she was growing up murder was virtually unheard of...bu now you hear of two-three each time the news is on.

... assuming you watch the news on Fox, or only ever fifth week.

Murder really is not that common in Ireland. And just because no one ever heard about it in the past doesn't mean it didn't happen.

talla10 · 01-05-2011 11:13PM

yoshytoshy wrote: »

If we had more garda ,there would be an increase in those figures.

CorkMan · 08-05-2011 07:31PM

If you ask me they should bring in capital punishment.

If a scummer steals something he should get 15 floggings. If he attacks someone 30 floggings. If he commits 20/30 offences in total he should be put before a firing squad. None of that tripe where there are 5 gunsmen and only one gun has a real bullet. Get 5 gunsmen who have been in hell that is called war.

Why is there such a hysteria about crime in Ireland?

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