Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Dr. Lambert is very welcome. I will focus on violence. Particularly over the past couple of years I have begun to explore responses to violence in other jurisdictions. Ireland is potentially way behind in understanding the core drivers. People get what the core drivers of violence might be to some degree, but, to date, we have always had shaming and punitive responses to violence. Dr. Lambert's last comment was about moving violence into the realm of being a public health issue. In some cases and in some communities, it may even be a public health crisis. In Scotland and elsewhere, those involved work on the basis that violence is preventable and not inevitable. To some degree, some of us expect that violence is part of human psychology or a human response to things. Some of the environmental factors and maybe the unmet needs in relation to housing and health can obviously create a very stressed mind. People can act irrationally within those very stressed environments and when people's needs are unmet.

I have been looking extensively at the work in New Jersey, New York and Los Angeles. In understanding the core drivers of violence, much of that work indicates that shame, humiliation and unmet need are the core drivers, but the response is to introduce harsher penalties and laws. In his book Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others, the criminologist Dr. James Gilligan shows how the level of violence increases under the Republicans and decreases slightly under the Democrats but never actually reaches an appropriate level. Neither party ever reduces it to the point where it is felt in people's lives. That ties into how policy impacts violence in communities. For a long time, the Irish response has been to be harsher or have a harsher rhetoric. However, one of the harshest of regimes in relation to violence in the western world is America which has the death penalty and a life sentence results in someone spending the rest of their life in prison without parole. An environment which has the harshest of laws still has the highest rates of violence.

Based on Dr. Lambert's work, both academic and outside the academic space, what would it mean for Ireland to move into that public health space where we start working with people who may have violent histories in their past or may have been in the prison system for violence and offering a bridge for young men? She stated that statistics show that young people will age out of crime and violent behaviour. What would it mean for Ireland to move from harsher rhetoric and a harsher policy to adopting a public health approach? This has been done in Scotland and policing is on board with that. Obviously, policing, politics and policy must be on board with a public health approach to violence. I ask Dr. Lambert to elaborate on a public health approach to violence.