Zero tolerance policy ‘won’t reduce crime’
A ZERO tolerance clampdown will do nothing to reduce crime in Dublin, a leading academic has warned.
Dr Ian Marder, who is a lecturer in Criminology at Maynooth University in Co Kildare, says there is no evidence crime crackdowns work.
And he also said such a strategy could even drive young people towards crime.
“Zero tolerance results in criminalising low-hanging fruit,” he told The Star.
He was speaking after a number of highprofile attacks in the city — and the decision of Justice Minister Helen McEntee to give gardai in Dublin an extra €10 million.
That money will be used to have more high-visibility patrols in the city — to reassure locals and tourists that Dublin is safe.
But the recent attacks on tourists like American Stephen Termini (57), who was assaulted on Talbot Street on July 19, have led to calls for tougher policing in Dublin — like the Zero Tolerance strategy introduced in crime-ridden New York in the 1990s.
That policy saw cops pull up people for even the smallest infraction — and Dr Marder told us that would not work in Ireland.
Decide
He said gardai use a policy of discretion that allows them to decide not to prosecute for certain minor offences — but zero tolerance would take that power away from them.
“Zero tolerance basically is enforcing the criminal law as often as possible whenever you have the opportunity to do so,” he said.
“When I teach policing, one of the big concepts I try to get across is police discretion.
“Discretion is about the choice to enforce or not.
“Zero tolerance would be effectively reducing discretion or discouraging the choice not to enforce.
“So what that would look like in Dublin would be if kids are hanging out, you can go over and search them see if they have any drugs, see if there’s public order.”
And Dr Marder says all previous examples of tougher policing in Britain showed that it led to more kids getting criminal records.
He said: “Zero tolerance results in criminalising low-hanging fruit.
“When they encouraged enforcement in England and Wales in the late 1990s and 2000s, what you had was a massive increase in first time entrants to the criminal justice system.”