Should the Army help the Gardai patrol our streets in order to tackle Crime?

omnicorp

Should the Army help the Gardai patrol our streets in order to tackle Crime?

As we know, crime, especially on weekend nights isn't low.
And the Gardai hardly have the men or resources.
And the Army isn't busy invading Iraq.
So maybe, instead of wasting our rescources on the army while they do nothing, maybe they could, as part of their training, train to be police and help the Gardai?
Take away their guns and give them stun guns so we don't have any "accidents"

I think it could work, we have thousands of troops and they could really do some good.

Anyone agree.

magick

nope, basically the armys training is to deal with someone shooting guns at them and using all possible force to deal with the enemy,not taking abuse from some drunken idiot on a saturday night. Plus take into account the cost it would take to train them not to mention probably the uproar from the Gardi. Also i dont think people would find the army going around the streets a comforting though.

mycroft

Anyone else notice Omnicorp's posts are still basically poles, only y'know without the pole part anymore.

But to answer your question.

No don't be stupid, constitutional the army doesn't have the right to arrest people unless a state of emergency is called and then they have absurd powers I hardly think binge drinking constitutes an act of emergency.

Combine that with their lack of training in the law, it's idiotic idea

therecklessone

omnicorp wrote:

Anyone agree.

No. Absolutely not. I can't believe you'd even suggest it.

The defence forces should have no role in policing.

I'd allow some leeway for the deployment of the DF in the event of serious civil disorder, but I don't consider drunken yobbery as serious civil disorder.

angeldelight

It's hardly realistic to expect an armyman/woman to break up a crowd of teenagers drinking on canal banks using their rifles........there'd be outrage!

Redleslie2

Use a field artillery regiment to stop some spa abusing takeaway staff?

Boston

The Army is not a police force. Its not there job. I'd prefere a working and effective police force over the Army. The Army arn't sitting on their arse all day, they have many dutties. the idea is insane.

thejollyrodger

No Way !! this is not Iraq FFS.

magick

hmm however it might be handy to use field artillery to destroy some unsightly parts of the city

or use tanks to crush peoples cars who double park

chewy

along with the discussion going on about police on after hours.

yes police and army the solution to all our social ills...

omni you are one dangerous man!

ShiverinEskimo

Martial Law on the streets every saturday night. Hardly a tourist friendly approach is it. Save the money you'd spend training army men, cut paper work, get Gardaí out on the streets where they can be effective and hope that the situation changes.

LegacyUser

the thing you forget is, the army are the same folks as those causing crime, ballyer heads who have no skills to offer but to point something and pull the trigger, GRUNTS as whats his name said, basically you would be putting another bunch of anto's on the street, but these anto's have autos

Kappar

I wasn't sure if I should start a new thread about this, so sorry if I'm hijacking this thread but what are people's feelings about section 18 of the new Garda Bill http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/bills/2004/0804/b804s.pdf#

As I read it it provides for "Civlian Garda". They have a similar project in some parts of the US and of what i've seen they only people that do it are those who crave power. And i can see that happening here.

ionapaul

bananayoghurt wrote:

the thing you forget is, the army are the same folks as those causing crime, ballyer heads who have no skills to offer but to point something and pull the trigger, GRUNTS as whats his name said, basically you would be putting another bunch of anto's on the street, but these anto's have autos

Huh? Has someone spiked my water? What are you talking about?

As others have said, the Army may not have the necessary training to deal with crime on the streets and drunken yobs. I do think we could do with reducing the size of the Army (now that, fingers crossed, the republican threat seems to be diminishing) and increasing Gardai numbers. Which I believe FF promised prior to the last election. I would like to see a more visible Garda presence on the streets late at night and faster response times. Maybe free up trained Gardai by outsourcing some of their paperwork/administrative functions?

chill

No way.

The Gardai are doing a damed fine job. There is no such thing as 100% protection if people insist on becoming criminals.

flogen

easily one of the worst suggestions I've seen on these forums in a long, long time... much worse than anything, even those stupid "boards elders" .

I won't repeat what has been said, but I basically think its a stupid idea for all the above reasons.

flogen

Rew

Stupid idea and a few people showing their ignorance of what the Army do and who is in the Army.

seamus

It's not as if our streets are overrun with criminals on the weekends. Anti-social behaviour maybe, but it's not like we all need to stay indoors for fear of being murdered.

The Army only need to police in times of severe social disorder or internal attacks (say if the IRA attempted to take control of part of the country).

mike65

I dunno, I see some merit in a bunch of skangers being chased down the street by a APC with 40mm cannon on top.



Mike.

Rew

mike65 wrote:

I dunno, I see some merit in a bunch of skangers being chased down the street by a APC with 40mm cannon on top.



Mike.

Thats a .5 Machine Gun

omnicorp

Rew wrote:

Thats a .5 Machine Gun

well, I did say that if they did patrol our streets that we'd thake away their weapons.
And what I meant was a Gardai/army combo.

seamus

omnicorp wrote:

well, I did say that if they did patrol our streets that we'd thake away their weapons.

Then what would be the point? Any scumbag would laugh at a guy in an army suit telling him to move on.

DublinWriter

omnicorp wrote:

Should the Army help the Gardai patrol our streets in order to tackle Crime?
Anyone agree.

Er...no.

What we do need is for FF/PD to make good their promise to add 2,000 new members to An Garda Siochana by the end of 2003.

Yes, I said 2003. But that promise went the same way that the promise they made to end hospital waiting lists by May of this year.

The €60 million p*ssed away on the failed e-voting inituative could have paid the salaries of 2,500 new gardai in the first three years of their careers.

Here we have just under 12,000 police for a population of 4 million.
In the North they have around 20,000 police for a population of 1.5 million.

Raskolnikov

DublinWriter wrote:

Here we have just under 12,000 police for a population of 4 million.
In the North they have around 20,000 police for a population of 1.5 million.

That's not too fair comparing statistics given the climate in the North . . .

I still agree with the thrust of your point though, 2,000 extra guards are needed on our streets.

ChipZilla

omnicorp wrote:

Should the Army help the Gardai patrol our streets in order to tackle Crime?

As we know, crime, especially on weekend nights isn't low.
And the Gardai hardly have the men or resources.
And the Army isn't busy invading Iraq.
So maybe, instead of wasting our rescources on the army while they do nothing, maybe they could, as part of their training, train to be police and help the Gardai?
Take away their guns and give them stun guns so we don't have any "accidents"

I think it could work, we have thousands of troops and they could really do some good.

Anyone agree.

Step away from the crack pipe! Put it on the floor and step away NOW!

That is easily the most stupid suggestion I've ever heard. And for so many reasons...

Just assuming that in la-la land, the army did actually patrol the streets, what kind of message would that send out? "Our cops are so crap we need tha army to help them do their job"?

If the cops we have actually got their thumbs out of their arses and did a bit of proactive policing for a change, we wouldn't have people making dumbass suggestions like this.

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Boggle

I dunno - I can see where omnicorp is coming from. We have an army of x thousand sitting there with no purpose barring going on peace-keeping missions and then we have an underfunded, under resourced police force who ar incapable/unwilling/scared of patrolling our streets. Maybe its time to start training and transferring members of the army into the gardai altogether. Little extra cost to the state - just means they'll have a purpose for being payed....

Zulu

Putting the army on the streets is a ridiculous idea. Crime isn't that bad here.

The problem isn't that the police are understaffed, incapable,unwilling or even scared, it's that they are crap.

pork99

Boggle wrote:

Maybe its time to start training and transferring members of the army into the gardai altogether. Little extra cost to the state - just means they'll have a purpose for being payed....

Have you any concept of what is involved in military training compared to what is involved in police training? Just because they're both uniformed services doesn't mean it's that similiar. There is some overlap but it would be just as cost effective to get new recruits straight from civilian life.

Many countires have more than one police force, in France for example there's the National Police administered by the Ministery of the Interior and the Gendarmerie Nationale administered by their Ministery of Defence. The Gendarmerie Nationale functions as military police as well as carrying out internal security, border security and anti-terrorist duties, the National Police does the routine street policing and crime detection as far as I can tell.

However it does occur to me that our defence forces have more in common with the French Gendarmerie than an actual Army/Navy/Air Force as you have in Britain, USA, Russia etc Armies in those contries can expect themselves to be in actual shooting wars involving the traditional military practices of "killing people and breaking things". Our guys would be very unlikely to find themselves in this situation being involved in aid to the civil powers at home and peacekeeping abroad.

Boggle

Zulu wrote:

Putting the army on the streets is a ridiculous idea. Crime isn't that bad here.

The problem isn't that the police are understaffed, incapable,unwilling or even scared, it's that they are crap.

Tell that to anyone in or around moyross! Incapable is a nice way of saying crap by the way ...


Military training: tough arduous training routine, good levels of discipline, very capable people according to any reports I have heard.

Garda training: couple of months in templemore drinkin beer with other spoilt brats who's only purpose of being there is to be able to tell others what to do. (I wish I were exagerating - I've been there a few times!)

Point is the military are disciplined enough so why not allow them to train for the gardai and transfer across?

bananayoghurt

The general army is not trained or equipped to deal with the normal populase in this manner. I doubt they'd be received well by many people, since Irish people tend to complain loudly if they find their freedoms being challenged (The army on the streets being tandemount to martial law). Saying that however, use of the military police could be used to give the Gardai a boost. Something like a flying column.

bananayoghurt wrote:

the thing you forget is, the army are the same folks as those causing crime, ballyer heads who have no skills to offer but to point something and pull the trigger, GRUNTS as whats his name said, basically you would be putting another bunch of anto's on the street, but these anto's have autos

you don't have much respect for our armed forces, do you? I don't suppose you have any evidence to back up such a statement, and huge generalisation?

pork99

Boggle wrote:

Point is the military are disciplined enough so why not allow them to train for the gardai and transfer across?

In other European countries it's common for ex-military personel to join the police. I think one of the factors against it in this country is the upper age limit of 26 for becoming a Garda. This makes it almost impossible to have a military career and then become a cop. I believe other European countries have upper age limits into the 30s and 40s allowing people to come into the police from other careers and walks of life.