Real-life experience gives lie to `armed robber' myth

Having made so much political profit from allegedly rampant lawlessness, the Government has a serious problem. Crime is drying up. The analysis of the much-derided bleeding-heart liberals that high crime rates are driven by social and economic failure has proved to be correct.

The graph of crime statistics has mirrored almost precisely the graph of unemployment figures, falling steadily over the last two-and-a-half years. What's a bombastic Minister for Justice, committed to mindless slogans and more prisons, to do?

Happily, there is a silver lining. Armed robberies are up. In the first six months of this year, the number of raids has risen to 61, compared with 29 in the same period last year. God bless the robbers.

The Minister can go on the News at One and talk tough. He will, he assures us, be telling senior Garda commanders to focus their attention on the organised criminals who specialise in armed robbery. A "substantial improvement" will be achieved.

Let's think, for a moment, about the criminal masterminds behind the majority of armed raids. Let's consider a fairly typical armed robbery in Dublin. Here, for example, is an account of one such crime in the working-class suburb of Crumlin, given to me by a close relative who witnessed it.

She drops into the local Spar for a carton of milk and she's down at the fridge when a little girl, no more than five, comes running up to her. "Missus, missus, get down. There's a robber in the shop and we're all going to be shot."

So she hunkers down and tries to make herself so small that she'll disappear. But curiosity is an irresistible force so she looks up and sees this big fella in a balaclava. He has a knife to the throat of the poor young one who serves behind the counter. The owner of the shop is roaring. The robber is roaring back. It's like something out of a film.

A man wanders in from the street to buy his cigarettes, as he does every morning when he takes the dog for a walk in the park. He takes one look at what's going on and decides to act, as any model citizen would. He shouts at the dog, an inoffensive little cur, and points at the robber.

"Get him!" The dog looks at the robber. The robber looks at the dog. The dog hesitates. "Get him" the model citizen roars at the disconsolate mutt. The dog hesitates no longer. He turns tail, zips out the door and heads for the park. All of this happened over a week ago and the dog hasn't been seen since. The model citizen shakes his head and wanders off without his cigarettes.

The robber is getting agitated now. The owner is shouting out that there is no money on the premises, that he's been robbed three times in the recent past and doesn't keep large sums of cash around anymore. But the robber is cursing and swearing and shouting. He's pulling and dragging at the shelves and the drawers and finally he kicks over the whole counter, sending glass and sweets flying in a shower of tinkling shards and a downpour of Mars Bars, Aeros, Twixes, Yorkies, Lion Bars, Smarties, Crunchies, Munchies, Whole Nut, Hazlenut, Rum and Raisin, Dairy Milk, Caramel and Curly Wurlies. There's more chocolate everywhere than Willie Wonka could make or Hansel or Gretel eat in a month of Sundays.

WITH the shock of the fall, the cash register is unlatched and sits there open-mouthed in amazement, displaying all its silvery fillings of coins. The robber realises that he will have to settle for the metal money, for the racket has attracted a gang of kids who are gawking in the windows and hopping up and down in excitement, adding their own squeals to the din.

The robber looks around for something to carry the loot in. He grabs a Spar shopping bag and starts to stuff it with coins. When it's bulging and jingling, he leaps over the fallen counter, tiptoes through the sweeties and legs it for the door, heading for his car that's parked on the roundabout, just a few yards away.

But the kids outside have seen him coming. They've planned an ambush. Just as the desperado gets through the door with his heavy plastic bag of disappointing loot, they push a supermarket trolley into his path.

As if it's all happening in slow motion, the people behind him in the shop watch as the trolley glides into his path, as he tumbles over it with a shuddering flip and as he sprawls, somewhere between stupefied shock and tearful outrage, on the path. The money-laden Spar bag is launched briefly into orbit above the streets of Crumlin and then splashes down in triumph, sending a spray of glittery coins in every direction.

The robber, mastermind of organised crime that he is, picks himself up, bolts for his car and speeds off in a haze of exhaust fumes and humiliation, not a penny richer than he was when he launched his villainous escapade. But the reign of lawlessness is not yet over.

The five-year-old girl who originally warned my relative of the danger has moved to the front of the shop to watch the action. Waking from her wonder, she sees a pound coin glittering alluringly at her feet. In one graceful move, she grabs the money and gallops up the road.

This is the signal for an outbreak of unrestrained criminality. The kids who ambushed the robber start to scoop up fistfuls of coins, before scarpering in their turn. One bold youth, whose taste for filthy lucre is weaker than his taste for sugar, heads into the shop and starts filling his pockets with chocolate bars. But the forces of law and order at last assert themselves. A local matron who has wandered into the shop decides to intervene. "Ya dirty-looking pig, would you leave them sweets alone? The poor man is after being robbed once already." The sheepish youth puts the chocolate back and scuttles out the door.

My relative arrives home dazed to discover not only that she has forgotten the milk, but that she is clutching three pound coins that she picked up on the street and meant to return to the unfortunate shop owner. She's afraid to go back now in case she is implicated in organised crime.

This was, perhaps, armed robbery number 63 or 64 of 1999. In the end of the year statistics, it will figure as part of the shocking rise in this particularly serious form of crime. In the towering intellect of the Minister for Justice it will form part of an argument for more prisons, tougher sentences, and more slogans in which the words "crackdown", "zero tolerance" and "organised crime" will be arranged in various orders.

In the making of what passes for policy, the distinction between professional criminals and pathetic, shambolic, desperate people will continue to be blurred by the power of statistics.