The Factors Of The Crime Complex In Ireland

Introduction

In recent years, there has been a clear move away from the penal welfarism system which is thought to have existed from 1895 up until the early 1970s. During this time period, the attitude which existed was one of individualism; where each person had to take responsibility for their own actions. The individualism ideal present at the time linked in seamlessly with the moralism stance whereby a person is governed by the choices that they make regardless of the consequences. This laissez faire approach was widespread and was applied in the workplace, in criminal law, in the penal system and even in contractual relations. Furthermore, the prison systems in place at the time were formed with this idea of individualism in mind; they allowed people to be held harshly and unequivocally responsible for their actions and it was an added benefit that each cell could be measured with arithmetical precision. In his study of penal welfarism, Garland argues that there was an exact symmetry between both the penal and legal systems and the ideological discourses of that time period. He also believed that there was no knowledge being recognised beyond legal knowledge therefore any social, psychological, psychiatric or criminological knowledges were not finding their way into the courtroom. When all of these factors are looked at in conjunction with one another, it paints a picture of a harsh, depersonalised and possibly even regressive system. What led to the decline of Penal Welfarism?

Garland describes the system of penal welfarism as having been “shaken to its roots” in recent times. There was a clear shift from moralism to causalism, where the focus was placed on what caused the person to commit a crime rather than the committal of a crime being seen solely as a lapse in judgement or a bad decision. In his book entitled “The Culture of Control”, Garland delves into what exactly has caused such massive changes to come about as well as examining the differences between the older penal welfarism system and the current system in place today. The way in which Garland explores these questions is through what he calls the 12 “indices of change”. These indices include: the decline of the rehabilitative ideal, the re-emergence of punitive sanctions, the return of the victim, the increased public protection, reinvention of the prison system, politicisation and the new populism, the expanding infrastructure of crime prevention, the commercialisation of crime control, the changes in the emotional tone of crime policy, transformation of criminological thought, new management styles and working processes and lastly, a perpetual sense of crisis. These elements of change become majorly important when they are looked at as a collective as opposed to individually, especially when examining the crime complex and the extent to which it exists in Ireland. The Crime Complex in Ireland.

Garland puts forward the argument that, as a result of generations and cultures forming in a society which is exposed to the phenomenon of high crime rates coupled with a perpetual sense of crisis, crime has now been given a “settled institutionalised form”. He has given this formation the name of the “crime complex” and believes it to be easily distinguishable through a number of different factors. Such factors include:

1. High crime rates are regarded as a normal social fact,
2. Emotional investment in crime is widespread and intense, encompassing elements of fascination as well as fear, anger and resentment,
3. crime issues are politicized and regularly represented in emotive terms
4. concerns about victims and public safety dominate public policy
5. the criminal justice state is viewed as inadequate or ineffective
6. private, defensive routines are widespread and there is a large market in private security
7. a crime consciousness is institutionalized in the media, popular culture and the built environment.

The emergence of this “crime complex” has been hugely affected by the aforementioned indices of change. There are 2 of these changes which I will be focussing on for the purposes of this essay: the return to the victim and the reinvention of prisons.

The Return of the Victim

Under the penal welfare system, the victim was treated as a piece of evidence for the prosecution rather than a victim of a crime. The State versus the accused model was thriving at the time but at present, this model is no longer sufficient. In the last 30 years, the victim has made a return to the criminal justice process. In today’s society, the victim is expected to be allowed to publicly express their thoughts, anger, fears and concerns if they want or need to do so. The argument has been put forward by Kilcommins, Leahy, Walsh and Spain that the re-emergence of the victim in Ireland occurred due to 4 main factors, which are: victimology research, victims movement, the recognition and expansion of human rights and also, crime becoming a national election issue. With regard to the first factor, while the study of victimology began with the idea of victim precipitation and the contribution of the victim to the crime, there was later a huge shift away from “victim-blaming” towards understanding victimisation. Crime surveys began to be carried out worldwide with the aim of recording the experiences of crime victims and delving into the world of crimes not reported to authorities. Ireland followed this trend in the 1980s through victimology studies and also examined crimes which went unreported to the Gardaí. Regarding the effect this had on the emergence of the crime complex in Ireland, the central role of the victim and the aim to gain a deeper understanding of their experience as a victim can lead to an increase in emotional investment in crime, which is one of Garland’s factors indicating the existence of the crime complex. This feeds into the idea that the system is no longer one of individualism and instead now points towards a “collective meaning of victimhood”. The further development of this collective mindset can be clearly evidenced in Ireland through the examination of the emergence of the victims’ and the women’s movement. In the 1970s, we began to see the creation of centres and establishments focussed on understanding the victim; seeking to give them support in the aftermath of the crime. This movement began in Ireland through the establishment of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1970s and also the creation of the first Rape Crisis Centre in Dublin in 1979. In the 1990s, the attrition rate in Ireland was devastatingly high with approximately 100 rape cases being reported and only 8 resulting in convictions. In response to harrowing statistics such as this, services such as Women’s Aid and centres for refuge came into fruition. Services for all crime victims and not solely victims of sexual violence were provided by Victim Support Ireland. This organisation acted as the voice of victims throughout the country ensuring that their experiences and concerns were heard by government officials, legislators and the judiciary. Unfortunately, in 2005, Victim Support Ireland came to an abrupt halt due to funding being withdrawn. Fortunately, Rape Crisis Ireland, among many other services for crime victims continue the work of ensuring the victim is heard and cared for. With regard to human rights, the scope of such rights was expanded in the 1980s to categorically include the rights of victims of crime. Ireland was affected by this through the UN and the EU ensuring that crime victims’ rights were evolving alongside the ever-changing landscape of victimology. Lastly, the emergence of crime as a political issue came about as a result of a huge fall in public confidence in the criminal justice system, the Gardaí, the DPP and the judiciary. This issue arguably links to one of Garland’s crime complex factors which is that “the criminal justice state is viewed as inadequate or ineffective. ”

Reinvention of the Prison

In contrast to the re-emergence of the victim in Ireland, the reinvention of the prison in Ireland does not appear to fit into Garland’s crime complex theory. In the past, prisons were designed to make prisoners reflect through a silent system where they had no engagement with one another. During this period, there was a significant amount of emphasis on prison architecture. Architecture was thought to be extremely important with regard to inspection, surveillance and uniformity. Regimentation was also introduced to the daily life of a prisoner where every hour of their day was scheduled and could be clearly tracked. This included strict labour, timetables, dietary regulations, identification procedures and also regimentation with regard to healthcare. The 1863 Carnarvon Report is one of the most important reports in the world in terms of showcasing the regimented ideals which existed at the time. The report details the idea that all parts of a prisoners day should be rigorously regimented. The practices put forward regarding prisoner regimentation were officially sanctioned in 1863 with the Committee stating that they were “of the opinions that it is desirable to establish without delay a system approaching as nearly as may be practicable to a uniformity of labour, diet and treatment; and that whilst industrial occupation should in certain stages form a prat of prison discipline, the more strictly penal element of that discipline is the chief means of exercising a deterrent influence, and therefore ought not to be weakened. ' All of this was designed to create what historians Beatrice and Sydney Webb called “the fetish of uniformity”. It was also noted by Garland that, at the time, “the primary concern was with the production of a disciplined and orderly regime, a regime which enforced an intense form of obedience through a number of uniformly distributed conditions and procedures”. Garland believes a change in the prison system occurred between the period of 1895 and the First World War in 1914. During this short timeframe, the number of sanctions available to the criminal court doubled and now included new sentences such as probation orders, inebriate detention centres, detention institutions for the mentally defective and also supervised fines. He believed that the 1907 Probation of Offenders Act was hugely transformative as it “established a non-custodial, supervisory sanction for both juveniles and adults which was to be used in cases where the character of the offender or the nature of the offence made “punishment” inexpedient”. With regard to Ireland and the existence of the crime complex in this country, while cases such as State v Donoghue and DPP v WC show a shift towards individualisation, the prison system in Ireland was not transformed as much as Garland had described in other countries. Firstly, the first probation officer did not come into fruition in Ireland until the 1970s which is more than 60 years after the introduction of the 1907 Probation of Offenders Act. Secondly, as examined by Eoin O’Sullivan and Ian O’Donnell, in 1965, Ireland had the highest rate of patients in institutions in the world with approximately 17,949 patients in institutions. Such institutions were still being used as a catch all for “fallen women”, drunkards, orphaned children and prisoners both young and old. Statistics such as this fly in the face of Garland’s theory that the prison and institution had become completely decentralised in the 20th century. The reinvention of the prison in Ireland during this time was evidently trailing behind the rest of the world. While prisons became more open to the idea of causalism and the justice system began to recognise the stance of individualisation, there was still a huge amount of involuntary detention throughout the country where the rights and needs of prisoners and patients alike were a secondary concern.

Conclusion

To conclude, Garland’s crime complex theory is superb and forces an introspective look into the inner workings of the Irish criminal justice system. We are compelled to consider the many changes in Ireland which led to the downfall of the harsh system of penal welfarism and the rise of a more understanding, considerate and modern system. With regard to the crime complex, the re-emergence of the victim in Ireland points to the existence of the complex due to the rise in emotional investment in crime as well as the view of the justice system being ineffective or inadequate. In contrast, the lack of reinvention of the prison system in Ireland would lead one to believe that there is no existence of the crime complex in Ireland. The country routinely used institutions and prisons as a catch all and prisons and institutions were seen to work solely because the detained people rather than reformed them. Therefore, while it can be seen that are aspects of the crime complex that exist in Ireland, as a whole, it is arguable that the theory cannot be applied to Ireland with a high degree of accuracy.