I fought Finance and Finance won.

To paraphrase Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern has been bowled over by the new wave of fiscal rectitude. He looked across Stephen's Green towards the Department of Finance and promptly hid in the basement when it came to budgets.
The Clash rose to prominence with their warning to British society in the late 70’s as to where urban alienation would take them. Sure enough along came Margaret Thatcher to prove them right in a brutal summer of 1981 that saw Strummer’s “Guns of Brixton” acted out for real 2 years after he recorded it. The implicaiton is clear, stringent policing, short sharp shock was the cliche, cut funding to commumities and the results were disastrous. The nature of policing in any community is esential towards holding together citizens by re-inforcing their stake in society through their security.
Suddenly it seems we’re going to do a u-turn on spending on garda numbers. Dermot Ahern has flagged that today that numbers are going to drop. I’m worried that it will see a reduction in the work that gardaí do that is time consuming and perhaps do not grab the headlines. I’m worried that it will see rural areas without a garda presence even more than at present. I’m worried that it will mean a town like Wexford where gardaí are stationed in a building built in the 1930’s won’t get their new station. There’s a dogmatic left view of the garda that they represent authority, don’t live in the area they police and as a consequence should not be trusted. It’s not a view I’m inclined towards seeing as I do how they operate on the ground. Policing is a bit more complex than the classic scientific analysis from a sociological textbook. To be fair the PSNI has significantly changed in its approach and culture over its RUC predecessor. I’d like to think that An Garda could move on too. But for this they need money.

I’ll give you just 2 instances; community policing and juvenile liaison officers (JLO) but I could give you more. Is it not more effective to deal with problems first where they arise rather than allowing a problem fester? Both these approaches work and I think many councillors would like to see these schemes extended. They are very effective because they embed the garda in the community where they should be. In the 80’s people complained that gardaí were in squad cars and as a result some communities in particular in inner city areas were effectively thrashed by gangsters running a black economy in heroin. The response is to patrol on foot with officers who are known to the community. This works very well, slowly but surely gardaí on foot and on mountain bike are reshaping how policing is seen in communities. In Wexford we have a number of community gardaí. They are well received in the allocated areas and I’m always looking for more. However now I’m expecting to hear the management on the ground to predicate suggestions with “where resources will allow”. Not their fault, I’m the first to accept that.

You see communities hopes were built up when Fianna Fail were elected to power on a promise of zero tolerance. The notion caught on even though the Garda Commissioner at the time poured cold water on the whole idea as a gimmick rather than an effective policy. FF sold the idea to voters who were fed up with the rise in violent crime and the apparent ineffectiveness of legal measures to stamp it out. Garda numbers were promised to go to 15,000 by 2010 and 16,000 by 2012. Dermot Ahern campaigned on this at the last General Election 18 months ago. Only Fianna Fail can look you straight in the face and tell you that for the next step forward you must take 2 steps backward! That’s why the New Year holiday is used to announce reductions in garda numbers. I think that there’ll be zero tolerance shown to this type of spin in the 2009 local elections.

Anti Social Behaviour, a sign of our times?

Anti Social Behaviour is one of the most difficult issues that affects urban living. It’s symptoms are visible, graffiti, vandalism, damage to public property, violence, assault or threats. Add to that the psychological impact of people who feel threatened and change their behaviour patterns to the point where they feel they are prisoners in their own home. Wexford has no less nor no greater a problem than any other town of its size. There are parts of the town that suffer and there are parts of the town where it is not a big issue. This applies equally to public and private estates. I have received calls to my phone at 1 or 2 AM from communities where they are suffering to the extent that the only thing some people can do is ring their councillor.

There is a knee jerk response from some parties that seem to have all the answers but what I find interesting is that these councillors don’t seem to get the calls I do! I have huge sympathy particularly for people who’ve reared their family and after having a busy house now find it empty and feel really threatened and at the mercy of these youths. My initial response is what do these teenager’s parents think they’re doing out at this time of night? What about parental responsibility? I think however that anyone that rings me deep down are asking themselves is; what’s the states response?

It’s a fair question and lets be honest, telling someone from the comfort of your own bed that the gardaí will deal with it is pretty useless. The callers usually haven’t had any sleep and they’re rightly in no form for my potted polemic on the alienation of the youth generation in a post-modern recessionary republic.

I attended a conference a fortnight ago in Carrick On Suir about this problem. The topic was addressed in the context of the real cost of anti-social behaviour to our society. Senator Phil Prendergast spoke about how it has impacted on A&E particularly by night when fighting continues on in the waiting room. Professor John Hillary, spoke about the impact of anti-social behaviour on marginalised societies. The reality is that many of the dysfunctional families from which those responsible come do not just have a stake in our society but the parents who should be exercising control do not have a stake in the family. Where anti-social behaviour occurs regularly, often the male (a key influence on young boys) is absent, often the family income is low and often the family’s main source of income is social welfare. This family unit often needs financial assistance in providing for their housing needs. Often those responsible leave school early and have poor life prospects. While I go along with that and there’s nothing new to me in most of that, I strongly believe other factors are at play, why is it that some communities with these social indicators sometimes have much less ASB than others?

My feeling is that there is at least one main factor at play whose influence on our society is elusive and has yet to be properly evaluated and that is drugs and I include alcohol in that. As we see notably but not exclusively in some parts of both Dublin and Limerick some people have thrived on the creation of a third class, an underclass. The values these people (McCarthy, Dundon, Keanes, Collopys, Ryan’s, Hylands, Fatpuss Bradley, Christy Griffin etc,) have instilled in their communities counter the ethos of what a progressive, modern and socially integrated community should be. The inability of decision makers in our society to connect with these communities needs gives these families the platform from which to build their empires of free market crime unregulated by a government that is driven by an inherent suspicion of doing anything that sounds like real work?

And here’s what the problem is, pass the legislation (which was better than that in the UK) but in the case of Wexford use it rarely if at all. What was the point in bringing in orders if they were not going to be issued in relation to the hard core? The woman made that early morning call to me asks me was it all for the optics and did they mean it all? I have to accept her point. I think that urban regeneration is only going to be provide in a few centres and if the government think that that’s anti-social behaviour nationally sorted then they’re wrong. Much more needs to be done so that communities can feel secure again.