Wealthier people have more confidence in gardaí to tackle crime
Wealthier people have more confidence in An Garda Síochána’s ability to tackle crime than those living in poorer areas.
This is according to figures from the Central Statistics Office’s (CSO) Crime and Victimisation Survey, which reported that 56% of people living in disadvantaged areas felt the gardaí were “very effective” or “quite effective ” at tackling crime locally and 57% having confidence at a national level.
This contrasts with people living in very affluent areas, with 77% believing that gardaí were effective in tackling crime at a local level and 67% at a national level.
The figures also show that less than half (46%) of adults surveyed were confident that people who commit crimes are brought to justice in Ireland. Almost a fifth of people said that they were “not confident at all”.
People living in disadvantaged areas reported having less faith in the justice system than those living in more affluent areas.
Of those living in poorer areas, 38% said they were "very" or "quite" confident that people are brought to justice in Ireland, compared to 53% of those living in wealthier areas.
One in ten people aged 18 and over said they had been a victim of a theft or attempted theft, an assault or a fraud crime in the 12 months before being interviewed.
Only 39% of people who said that they had been a victim of personal crime said that they had reported some or all of the incidents to An Garda Síochána.
The most common reason for not reporting the crime was that the incident was not serious enough or that those affected had not suffered any loss (35%). Other common reasons cited were that the victim said that they had solved it themselves (24%) or that they did not believe that the Gardai could do anything about it (22%).
Women report being more worried about crime which could result in physical harm or injury than men.
Of those interviewed, 19% of women said they worried “all the time” or “often” about being a victim of a crime which might result in physical harm to them, compared to 11% of men.
Women were also less likely to feel safe walking in their local area at night, with 64% of those interviewed saying they felt “very safe” or “fairly safe” compared to 87% of men.
People in Dublin reported feeling the least safe walking in their local area at night, with over one quarter (28%) reporting feeling either “a little unsafe” or “very unsafe”.
One-third of people reported that they felt they felt that crime or anti-social behavior in their local area had impacted on their quality of life. This figure was higher in the capital, with 40% said that crime or anti-social behavior had an impact.
Of those interviewed, 4% of households reported being victims of a burglary or vandalism. Of these, 68% reported the incident to the Gardaí, with nearly half of those who did not report the crime stating that they did not consider the crime to be serious enough or that they had suffered no loss.
Over a fifth of farming households said they were victims of a crime over the past year. The crime most frequently reported was trespassing on farmland (18%) with the next highest being the theft of farm machinery (2%).
