Source: (2005) European Journal of Criminology. 2(1): 99-131.
Criminology remains underdeveloped in the Republic of Ireland and, although
some excellent pieces of scholarship have appeared down the years, an adequate
body of knowledge is still some way distant. Despite the limitations of the
available information, a number of trends can be discerned. The rate of recorded
crime reached a peak in the early 1980s and then fell for four years. This pattern
was repeated in the mid-1990s. In 1996 the debate about law and order
became hotly politicized. This marked the beginning of a steady increase in the
prison population. Despite surging costs, the criminal justice agencies have been
slow to embrace a culture of performance management and evaluation. Policymaking
is characterized by a mixture of inertia and sudden upheaval.
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