Incident Canada Square

anbodhran

Max Powers wrote: »

No where near enough, up to 12 months usually means a slap on the wrist. The Gardai should be going around stopping people randomly, if caught, they should be (since no prison space) sent out to pick up all the rubbish on a 5 mile stretch of road red square or somehting (9-5) and kept at until the place is spotless.

The Drug Squad regularly stop lads and search them apparently. There should be patrols of the subarbs who stop and search people hanging around on corners. It might be invasive, but it would at least send out the message that they were taking the issue seriously. Obviously resources are tight currently, but I've seen way too many lads looking idle around the place to believe their superiors couldn't get more from the force.

With regard to picking up rubbish, the problem there is that the city council already employ staff to do that. You'd have trade union disputes if you brought convicts in. They could and should be brought out to do one off jobs like clean up projects of Tramore, Woodstown, Comeraghs, graffiti etc.

merlante

Max Powers wrote: »

Thats funny in fairness Merlante.
Media 999, thanks for the well-considered intelligent rebuttle:D.

I dunno, this Garda would have seen it all from the 70s onwards, thru recessions, emigration etc so i would be taking his word over others on here so I would disagree with aggression levels have stayed the same. There must be an increase in serious assaults in last 10 years. What other factors have added to the mix? I dont buy the unemployment one, which was there all thru the 70/80s and trotted out by the rioters in London as their excuse (which Sky news basically told them to say).

Well up until the 90's nobody would call the gards in on anything unless it was a murder. And if they were called in, chances are it was a few slaps here and there and off the record. As a kid I can remember plenty of people getting hidings and sorting things out personally and I rarely saw a cop, let alone enforcing anything. The gardai were the fellas that set up checkpoints on the Dunmore rd. checking for a whole bunch of things on your car that were probably broken, and generally made your parents scramble for seat belts (that were also broken). It was a different world back then, and a pretty lawless one really -- except that the law was maintained by the community directly most of the time, and people wouldn't even know what an assault was because most people would have gotten into some scrape or other at some point and it was normal.

Going back to the 50's, my grandfather was apparently challenged to a fight, just for moving 'out of town' (to Congress place) and there was some issue with children fighting. So he knocked out a few of yer man's teeth and they were the best of friends after that. Another time the lights went out in a chipper and he got the **** kicked out of him. I can assure you the gards never would have heard about either incident. Just like they wouldn't have heard a peep about the serial rape going on around the corner in some industrial school or other, or indeed, in the odd family home. Needless to say that there was no amount of domestic abuse that would bring the cops within the mile of a house (parodied on a 'savage eye' the other night). At the turn of the century, apparently, people used to travel to market towns on trains for miles around with hooks and other weapons (as the travelers still do) and have massive gang fights just for the hell of it. And remember, people were well up for 'risings', wars of independence and civil wars for the sake of ideas that 90% of us wouldn't take so much as a clip on the ear for now.

So, while there may be an escalation in certain types of violence and certain incidents, society is *much* less violent now than it was. That's probably why we're so shocked by it. Most people on here have probably never been in a fight as an adult. That would have been rare in the past.