Abstract
It was only some 20 years ago that Roger Hood welcomed the ‘first major criminological study of crime in Ireland’. He was writing an introduction to a monograph by Brewer et al. (1997) whose title Crime in Ireland 1945–95 was somewhat upstaged by its pithy and perspicacious subtitle Here Be Dragons. The study of crime and criminal justice on the island of Ireland at that time was truly uncharted territory. The discipline suffered from a lack of funding and the overwhelming impact of some 30 years of intense conflict. The Northern Irish Conflict, between Irish nationalists on one side and those whose allegiances were to Britain, subsumed politics north and south of the border. Policymakers and academics were, perhaps understandably, more interested in the issues arising from the Conflict and ‘ordinary’ crime often went under-researched or ignored. That today we are able to open a handbook providing detailed assessments of the research literature across all aspects of Irish criminology is not just a credit to the editors and authors, but also a statement of how far the study of criminology in Ireland has come in those two decades.
The Handbook’s 30 chapters are divided into four thematic parts. Each part gathers together many of the leading criminologists, psychiatrists, lawyers and other experts from Ireland and abroad. The chapters engage with theory and international research before connecting it to the question of crime on the island of Ireland. Almost all of the chapters consider the treatment of their topic in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Many take the long view and go back to consider the influences of pre-partition (before 1922) policies on the contemporary criminological landscape. They do this while also drawing on international theoretical perspectives.
The first part entitled ‘Understanding crime’ sets out the key information on crime trends and homicide as well as sexual violence and domestic violence, cybercrime, poverty, white-collar crime and state crime. It also considers desistance and gang-related activity. This is the biggest part of the Handbook along with Part II ‘Responding to crime’. This second part covers different responses to the problem of crime from community safety and restorative justice through policing, sentencing and prison life.
The experiences of victims, drug users and women in the criminal justice system are considered in detail in the third part ‘Contexts of crime’. This also gives a lot of detailed analysis of the policy-making process and the impact of neo-liberalism, European perspectives and media influences on this process. The final, and shortest, part ‘Emerging ideas’ looks at organised crime, mental illness and ethnicity in Irish criminal justice. It also has a chapter that deals exceptionally well with Ireland’s ongoing struggle to come to terms with the abuse of power by the Catholic Church and its manifestation as child sexual abuse.
Although these are all disparate topics, there are some common threads running through many chapters. An obvious one is the overwhelming influence of the Conflict in Northern Ireland on policy on both sides of the border. A notable example of this is the use of non-jury trials in both jurisdictions (in the form of ‘Diplock’ courts in Northern Ireland and its neighbour’s Special Criminal Court). The Conflict has also influenced the way in which organised crime has developed and the contributors demonstrate the unique nature of Irish gangs, built as they are around family connections rather than geographical or other loyalties.
Alongside these critical discussions, there are also positives to be drawn out of the research. These include successful restorative justice projects and prison populations in both jurisdictions that are proportionally low by international standards. There is also a healthy rejection of managerialism dismissed by one Irish policymaker as ‘[t]he Blairite stuff of targets and quotas […] maybe it’s one way of doing it but it’s repugnant to the Irish psyche’ (p. 454).
There can be no doubt that anybody wishing to research or write about a criminological topic that touches on the island of Ireland will need to read this book. No literature review would be complete without doing so. Similarly, anybody teaching undergraduate or postgraduate criminology at an Irish educational institution or anywhere that wants to include all the jurisdictions of the UK and Ireland in their teaching will need to make many of these chapters prescribed reading for their students. Ireland, often forgotten or ignored by the criminological mainstream, has a lot to offer those interested in the study of different criminological approaches in common law jurisdictions. The status quo in large countries need not be inevitable.
As well as the obvious use of the Handbook for research and teaching one thing that strikes the reader is what it says about the analytical and descriptive power of criminology as a discipline. These careful discussions of complex areas of policy and justice paint a picture of Irish society which is rich and insightful.
The Handbook covers a huge amount of discussion of difficult issues (such as the experience of Travellers, clergy accused of child sexual abuse or those suffering from mental illness) in a probing and balanced fashion. The discipline of criminology has allowed the scholars to discuss Irish issues thoroughly and sensitively and this makes many of its chapters engaging and absorbing to read. The Handbook provides a broad picture of Ireland beyond simply its criminal justice systems and it is a significant contribution to scholarship on criminology in Ireland and Ireland itself.