NCJ Number
176672
Editor(s)
M Willis
Date Published
1998
Length
143 pages
Annotation
This is a comprehensive picture of crime and justice in Northern Ireland.
Abstract
The Digest contains information on all the major areas of interest: trends in crime; offenders; victims and how they are compensated; the prosecution process; what happens in court; sentencing; imprisonment; how much it all costs; and how many agencies and people are involved in the system. Crime was measured by offenses recorded by the police and through surveys of victims' experience of crime. Comparison of those two data sources indicated that approximately half of all crimes were reported, about one-fifth of notifiable crimes committed were recorded by the police, and about one in 10 notifiable crimes were cleared up. The most common reason for non-reporting was that the incident was "not serious enough." Seventy-two percent of respondents to the Community Attitudes Survey expressed confidence in the criminal justice system. Although the majority of respondents said the police in their area were doing a good job, Catholic respondents were slightly more likely than in previous years to say that the police were doing a poor job. More than half of all respondents thought there were too few Catholics in the police force. Almost three-quarters of all respondents felt that the courts treated Catholics and Protestants equally in relation to terrorist or sectarian crime, although 35 percent of Catholics felt Protestants were treated better while 8 percent of Protestants felt that Catholics were treated better. Notes, figures, tables, references, appendixes