Background to the Research

• The focus on terrorism has resulted in a lack of research into criminology in Ireland. No comparative study of crime in the two parts of Ireland is available. Analyses of crime trends in the South from 1951-91 are available and statistics and analyses of crime trends in the North are spartan.
• In the light of the gap in knowledge in this area, the Northern Ireland Office funded research in the mid-1990s into crime in Ireland. This chapter is based on part of that larger project, entitled Crime in Ireland 1945-95: 'Here be Dragons'.
  

Research Approach

• The authors examined crime statistics from 1945 and 1995 in the two regions. They also drew on a variety of surveys to explore victimisation.
  

Main Findings

National Trends in Crime 1945-95

• In the 1940s, the NI indictable crime rate was one-third of that of the Republic of Ireland. Overall, the crime rate in both regions rose over the decades, by 1983, 102,387 indictable crimes had been recorded in the South and by 1986, 68,255 had been recorded in the North. By 1995 this had reached 102,484 in the South and 68,808 in the North.
• When the crime rate per 100,000 of the population is considered, up until the 1960s the rates were fairly similar in each region. By 1965 the rate in the North was 53% greater than in the South, this rose to 60% in 1985 and has remained around a half and two-thirds greater than in the South since 1965. It is noted that crime rates began to rise in the North before the 'Troubles'.
• The indictable crime rate grew five-fold between 1945-95 in the South and by ten-fold in the North during the same period. Overall, the crime rate was rising in other industrial societies over the same period of time (England and Wales experienced a rise of nearly nine-fold).
• Between 1946-91, the crime rate in the two regions of Ireland has not risen to the level of England and Wales. The steep rise in crime - a feature of other advanced industrial countries - occurred a decade later in the two regions of Ireland. This reflects the late social and economic development of the two regions and mirrors the pattern of other peripheral regions of Europe.

Crime at City Level

• The incidence of crime in Dublin represents 50-60% of all crime in the South and the city only accounts for 29.8% of the total population of the country.
• There was no unified record of crime in the North until 1970. The four divisions into which Belfast is divided, put together, accounted for 61.5% of total notifiable crime in 1991 and 55% in 1995. Belfast accounts for 42% of the total NI population.
• Ireland's urban crime rate is still lower than in Britain's cities.

Victimisation Surveys

• There is no tradition of victimisation surveys in either region of Ireland. A survey carried out in the South in 1982/3 showed that crime is lower in Ireland than in Britain and there is less under-reporting, it was estimated that 1 in 3 crimes were reported in the South compared to 1 in 4 in Britain.
• The Continuous Household Survey data from the North in the 1980s also showed that more crime is reported in the North than in Britain. According to British survey data, 75% of crime was reported in NI in comparison to 68% in Britain.
• Available victimisation data shows that in NI there is less theft from vehicles and slightly less burglary than in Britain.

Irish Crime Trends

• Levels of violent crime are higher in the North - this is linked to the 'Troubles'. The rates of homicide, robbery and rape are lower in the South. In both regions, property crime is the most common form of crime and crime tends to be urban-based, and not against the person, in both regions.
• In the 1960s the crime rate grew in NI faster than in the South and it has remained consistently higher ever since.
• The divergence in the crime rate in the two regions must be set in the context of different socio-economic, demographic and political changes that took place in the two regions.
• Industrialisation occurred earlier and to a greater extent in the North, industrialism took shape in a society where two distinct communities were segregated by religion. These communities contained deep elements of traditionalism. For these reasons, the population base of Belfast has been more stable.
• Traditionalism and cleavage to community in the North meant that local communities played a role in preventing, suppressing and managing crime within local areas. The 1960s saw the erosion of traditional industries and traditional communities, during this time popular culture changed faster in the North than in the South. Religious boundaries were challenged by the rise of Catholic middle-class and improved Catholic access to education. Paramilitaries have also played a role in managing crime in the North.
• The age structure of the population in the South between 1951-91 meant that there were higher numbers of children per 100,000 of the population in the South than the North. Ireland was moving away from a peasant society from the beginning of the 20th century. Industrialisation, which was greater in the South in the 1970s/80s when industry in the North was in decline, was confined to isolated pockets rather than a countrywide phenomenon
• Dublin played a key role in Irish urbanism, half of the entire urban population of the South lives in Dublin. The population base is much more transient as people migrated to the city and emigrated from it.

Conclusion

• Criminology research in Ireland must be carried out to identify the variations in communities social behaviour in order to be able to analysis crime more fully.