Student union leaders will meet in Dublin today to discuss plans for the increased involvement of young people in the electoral process. USI president Mr Colman Byrne said yesterday the union had run a campaign since October to encourage students to make sure their names were on the electoral register. USI will hold information days at each of its member colleges between now and June 6th.
A PLEA for more research into the nature of crime in the State is one of the central features of the Department of Justice document.
The Department says it is in talks with universities and other bodies about research and suggests it would fund any efforts to make crime patterns more easily understood.
It says accurate data is needed not just to guide policy, but to reassure the public and inform the media of the "facts" about crime.
The media is accused of occasionally being "sensationalist", but while this can increase fear of crime, the document also says: "The Department of Justice does not subscribe to the view - sometimes articulated by commentators - that public concern about crime is, for the most part, a media driven phenomenon. It is, unfortunately, a fact of life that all too many individuals and families experience victimisation at first hand and acquire their concerns in that way and not through media reporting".
The document argues that one of the most pressing needs is for a new emphasis on "white collar" crime.
"The fact that so called `white collar' crime is frequently committed with apparent impunity by people in reasonably affluent circumstances, sometimes with substantial gain to the wrongdoer, is not lost on those more adversely placed". It says the success of white collar criminals gives "moral comfort" to other types of criminals.
But there is also a need to study the backgrounds of people involved in the more familiar "street level" crime.
"The most commonly offered solution to the crime problem is not the introduction of major social change, but the application of firmer law enforcement measures. However, the link between crime and disadvantage is real and is . . . an issue that has to be faced up to by all sections of society."