Research and accounts by five gardaí show criminal networks are becoming embedded in society and normalised due to fear, writes Security Correspondent Cormac O’Keeffe.
That an experienced garda would say that “gangs run the area” is as damning an indictment as you can get of society’s collective failure of certain communities.
And that garda’s view, given anonymously to researchers, is not unique. A total of five gardaí provided an honest and consistent picture of the structural and daily realities of communities affected by gangs and the sharp end of the drugs trade.
Researchers Johnny Connolly of University of Limerick and Jane Mulcahy of University College Cork also spoke to 10 community activists across a wide stretch of Dublin’s south west inner city and south west Dublin.
The report, Building Community Resilience, gives us a rare and detailed insight into gangs, which they more accurately describe as “criminal networks”. The networks are often characterised as a large, loose grouping of street drug dealers and runners and a more organised layer of bosses or “key players”.
Source: Cormac O'Keeffe, Irish Examiner, 11th December 2019
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