RECENT weeks have seen an unprecedented level of concern about crime. Fierce pressure is being put on the Minister for Justice to provide extra prison accommodation. It has become the received wisdom that more spaces are required if the public is to be protected from the predations of criminals. It is also believed that the deterrent value of prison is diluted through the absurdities of the system of temporary release, which result in over 1,000 prisoners being "unlawfully at large".

Recent years have certainly seen steady increases in the annual number of indictable offences recorded by the gardai. However, it is by no means clear that the Republic is currently experiencing a crime wave or that incarcerating more offenders is the only, or best, method of crime control.

Firstly, it is important to establish the broad parameters of crime in Ireland. Most indictable crime is against property and a large proportion of this is minor in nature - the most recent figures show that over one in five larcenies involved less than £50. But contrast offences against the person (murder, manslaughter, dangerous driving causing death, rape, woundings and so forth) constitute less than two per cent of all recorded crime and their number has been declining. The figures relating to violence against the person provide a good index of personal safety and freedom from attack, and it is salutary to remember that between 1988 and 1993 the number of assaults dropped by 40 per cent.

In terms of violent crime against the person Ireland must rank as one of the safest countries in the developed world.

It is also important to remember that although the crime rate has been increasing, the rise has been far less (dramatic than that experienced in other countries. For example, between 1987 and 1994 recorded crime increased by 18 per cent here, but by 35 per cent in England and Wales. Criminologists from other jurisdictions are often astonished by the low level of crime, especially in rural areas.

IT is paradoxical that despite our comparatively favourable position with regard to the level of recorded crime, there is increasing public concern about crime, and the prison population has been growing steadily. Indeed, a greater proportion of recorded offences results in the apprehension and imprisonment of the culprit than in many other European countries such as England, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

However, we are peculiarly ill equipped to address the causes of offending and strategies for crime reduction. The Government has estimated that expenditure on the criminal justice system will exceed £500 million this year. This is more than has been set aside for defence (£386 million), agriculture and food (£322 million) or transport, energy and communications (£116 million). It seems incredible that such vast expenditure can be authorised in the absence of any overall criminal justice strategy and without the benefit of any systematic criminological research.

If even one hundredth of one per cent of this proposed expenditure - less than the cost of keeping two prisoners in custody for a year - was directed towards a programme of empirical inquiry we might be in a better position to develop a rational and coherent crime policy. Ireland is unique among western countries in not having an independent criminological research institute.

In the absence of a properly informed dialogue about crime, it is all too easy to see imprisonment as a panacea. However, the assumption that an increase in the use of imprisonment will lead to a reduction in crime is seriously flawed.

A recent British Home Office study concluded that it would take a 25 per cent increase in the prison population to effect a one per cent reduction in crime. This is a factor which has been ignored in the general clamour for new prison places.

The marginal effect of imprisonment con crime rates is only one reason to proceed with caution. There is little conclusive evidence to show that the prospect of custody acts as a deterrent to those who are inclined to break the law, and less evidence again to show that prison has much potential to rehabilitate offenders.

If anything it may confirm them in a life of crime. It is often said that prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse.

THIS is not to suggest that a prison building programme has no part to play in efforts to control crime. It is simply to stress that a principled and coordinated long term strategy must be developed to manage more effectively (what appears to be an increasingly beleaguered criminal justice system, and to reassure a public whose quality of life is being diminished by fear of crime.

Although the provision of more prison accommodation might be one way of dealing with the problems of temporary release, there are other solutions. It is crucial to put the issue in a broader context and to consider the sentences handed down by the courts which, of course, determined the size and shape of the prison population. Temporary release is driven by prison overcrowding, and prison overcrowding is to some extent due to the incarceration of large numbers of offenders for short periods of time. In 1992, 40 per cent of committals to prison were for less than three months. Perhaps therefore the solution is not a prison building programme with all the associated financial and social costs, but better diversion of minor offenders from custody, harsher community penalties, and a fundamental attempt to address the causes of crime.

Furthermore, there is nothing wrong in principle with early release. In fact it is a good way of re integrating offenders into the community and reducing the likelihood of further offending. However, the present system is chaotic in its operation.

Offenders who do not comply with the conditions of their release can be returned to prison to serve the remainder of their sentence. As virtually every prisoner will be allowed out at some stage, surely every step should be taken to ensure that the risk they pose to the public has been minimised.

Priority should be given without delay to the establishment of a commission to consider the extent and nature of crime in modern Ireland, and the most effective ways to tackle offending.