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February 2008

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« Spraying perfume on dog turds | Main | As Brussels pushes for 'green crime' laws, Ireland will pay to pollute »

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Donagh

I don't have any useful information but the head of the survey group was interviewed on Prime Time last night and he suggested that often rising crime is associated with rising prosperity, which could account for why Ireland is so close to The Netherlands, Denmark and Britian, although I'm not sure if that theory works with Estonia.

Gerry

Thanks Donagh, I didn't see Prime Time last night. I'll look at it later.

Alex

Gerry and Donagh: the ‘Highlights and Policy Implications’ published to accompany this survey are quite informative.

On self-reporting to interviewers vs. reporting to the Gardai, the figures vary little across the EU: around 60% of serious crimes are reported to the police (with under-reporting obviously especially marked in cases of sexual assault and/or domestic violence).

Interestingly, Ireland is among the countries where crime victims rate their treatment by police most favourably.

On causes of crime, the authors note that:

“The most common factors associated with high levels of crime are urbanization and the proportion of young people in the population.”

This accords with the views of criminalogists such as Paul O’Mahony (see his Crime and Punishment in Ireland, 1995): young men, in particular, are disproportionately likely to be both the perpetrators and victims of crime - one reason why our crime rates were relatively low when emigration was high.

Finally – yes, something along the lines of the UK’s British Crime Survey would be extremely useful.

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