Woman rakes up 648 convictions

Worth noting that this type of consequence-free approach to criminal justice enables serious crimes, like the violent rape of a Spanish student some years ago by a man who was free to offend despite persistent breaches of his bail conditions for prior charges, all of which were ignored.

Boggles wrote: »

Way too simplistic, especially regarding the rapist in that case.

He was a symptom and a consequence of a dysfunctional mental / social care system way before any failings in the the criminal justice system.

Went into care at 15 months, fell through every crack right up to the time before the horrific attack. Eventually diagnosed with several severe disorders.

Will do 10 years in jail where he won't get any help and will eventually come out and re-offend again in all likely-hood.

The next one of him is being made at the moment, with a 3 year waiting list in some parts of the country for children to access a psychologist it's inevitable.

If the bail conditions were enforced he would have been imprisoned on remand and could not have committed that violent rape. That's a simple fact, which you seem to confuse with simplistic.

You can blather on about people falling through the cracks until you're blue in the face but the fact is we already spend a significant amount on social services and may not be able to spend much more. Whereas a functioning criminal justice system that protects people from criminals is quite feasible and could easily make a dent in the obscene level of recidivism in Ireland.

punisher5112 wrote: »

She's 44 she looks in her late 60s....

Hard work that robbing.

That's the toll spending 27 of your 44 years in jail has on her.

To be quite honest, I'd rather see the focus being put on dealing with the supply of drugs at the top and mid levels. The majority of people who are ending up before the district courts are victims of addictive substances being sold by these gangs. Yeah, their actions are annoying and even infuriating if you're the victim of petty crime, but it's petty crime.

We seem to spend an awful lot of time chasing petty stuff and it will not be resolved until we go after the mid and high level stuff in a much more aggressive way.

I'd rather see very well funded treatment programmes and support programmes for addicts at the lower end of the pyramid. It's worth investing in, as we're not getting anywhere with the current approach which seems to be to burry our heads in the sand and pretend it will go away with normal policing.

I mean someone like that turning up in court hundreds of times for the same offences is shocking but it's more an indictment of the policies and the system that for whatever reason, she's not getting the help to deal with her chaotic lifestyle. It's not good for her and it's not good for society.

All these calls for capital punishment and extreme stuff are utter nonsense. Deal with the damn mess that has been allowed to grow up in our towns and cities. There's been so much handwringing for so long!