‘Two strikes and you’re jailed... that’s how US lays down the law’
DEMAND is growing for automatic jail terms for repeat offenders – with victim groups saying a US-style ‘two-strike’ rule should be adopted here.
Repeat rapists and serial burglars allowed to walk free to carry out further violent robberies on innocent households should be among those targeted under new laws, justice campaigners say.
The wave of pressure for the law reforms comes on the back of a Department of Justice memo, released under Freedom of Information, that highlights how even the Government believes judges are too reluctant to jail convicts.
In the FoI, officials in Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan’s Department flagged up worrying cases of sexual assault, rape, aggravated robbery, burglary, manslaughter and assault causing harm, where only suspended sentences were imposed.
The Department’s new tack on mandatory prison terms for serial offenders has been warmly welcomed by Fianna Fáil and victim groups. Calling for a tough approach similar to that taken by some US states, Kieran Cleary, a Tipperary-based solicitor and president of the Victims of Crime Association, said there is ‘far too much leniency’ in the judicial process against criminals, especially repeat burglars.
‘I’m in the courts day in, day out,’ he said. ‘I’m now watching the third and fourth generations of the same families involved in robberies coming through the system. That’s the problem: there is no real deterrent.’
The principle of prison being a last resort is too often employed in recidivist cases, according to the Department of Justice, as revealed in the Irish Times FoI.
But Mr Cleary asked why prison should ever ‘be the last resort’ for serious offences. ‘In some countries, and some states in the US, they have the two-strike rule,’ he told the Irish Daily Mail. ‘On your first offence for a robbery, you get a criminal record but not necessarily jail. But for your second offence, you go to prison. This is a huge deterrent.’
He added: ‘For a second offence, there should be no leniency.’
The push for a clampdown on the current leniency adopted by judges follows a case last week in which an 86-year-old man walked free with an eight-year suspended sentence for the rape and repeated abuse of two young children.
‘Some such [suspended sentence] cases have caused considerable media commentary and public disquiet,’ said the Department in its written submission to the Law Reform Commission before the abuse case concluded.
In its memo to the Commission, the Department said that prison sentences should be imposed in the clear majority of such cases and jail terms ‘should be more closely observed in practice’.
Fianna Fáil justice spokesman, Jim O’Callaghan TD, warmly welcomed the move, which may reflect a get-tough approach from Mr Flanagan in the run-up to the next general election.
Mr O’Callaghan, a barrister who recently introduced a Bill calling for tougher sentences for repeat offenders, declared: ‘Where a person has been convicted of serious offences – such as for rape, sexual assault, serious assault, gangland crime or aggravated burglary – and that person has previous serious convictions, then the presumption should be that they receive a custodial sentence.
‘Victims of serious crime and the general public deserve to be protected from dangerous criminals who pose an ongoing threat. In general, our prisons should not be places for non-violent offenders and prison sentences should only be imposed where they are necessary. They clearly are necessary for most repeat violent offenders or for sexual offenders.’
Mr Cleary – the solicitor who represented Emma and Mark Corcoran, the parents who were savagely beaten in front of their children in Tipperary by a sevenman burglary gang in 2013 – added: ‘It’s a fact that 80% of crimes are committed by those on bail.’
The Department of Justice submission to the Law Reform Commission clearly points to prison sentences being the norm for serious assaults, but even here the evidence is that suspended sentences are employed too often.
They are ‘not especially rare’ as they should be, it said. Justice officials also questioned why jail sentences are imposed only as a last resort, especially in the case of ‘chronic recidivist offenders’.
A Bill to impose minimum sentences for repeat sex offences has been introduced in the Dáil, but is far from being enacted. The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill will extend and strengthen existing criminal law on sexual offences. In particular it will allow for the introduction of ‘presumptive minimum sentences’ for repeat sexual offenders.
The Mail’s ‘Call This Justice’ campaign has highlighted a litany of soft-sentencing cases.
Seán Collins, 71, who pleaded guilty to careless driving while over the alcohol limit, causing the death of a teenager, was spared jail last February. Even though the pensioner, of Threeneeves, Leap, Rosscarbery, Co. Cork, had a previous conviction for drink driving, he received a 12-month suspended sentence arising from the death of Stefan Cooper, 18, who was cycling when struck by Collins’s 4x4 in west Cork two years ago.
Then there was the case of health assistant and Garda Reserve member Hugh Condren, 48, of Brookville Avenue, Swinford, Co. Mayo, who was given a two-year suspended sentence at the Circuit Criminal Court last June for possessing 109 child abuse images involving children from the age of four up. Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin said he was satisfied there was a low risk of re-offending.
Comment – Page 12 senan.molony@dailymail.ie
‘80% of crimes are by those on bail’
‘Had 109 child abuse images’