Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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I do not know whether it is a philosophical question or whether there is a theory on it, but my question is about the illusion of safety. I have become a little bit obsessed with the subject. When I am doing community work in certain environments, people will say that we need more police on the streets. I am aware that more police on the streets does not reduce instances of violence over time. There is a book I tell people to read when thinking about crime, called Reflections on the Guillotine, by Albert Camus. It describes a public spectacle where people are invited to the town hall and they watch the person in the guillotine but it never reduces murder or stops it. The moral spectacle that we create out of people does not reduce instances of crime as it never looks at the core drivers of the different instances such as we have been speaking about. That makes me think about communities, understandably, calling for visibility of gardaí on the streets or harsher penalties around things. I am thinking about the importance of actual safety versus the illusion of safety. If we are looking at a flat complex or concentrated community where there are a lot of people housed, there may be people in that area who are experiencing instances of violence all around them. They may not be direct targets of it but they are experiencing violence all around them nonetheless.

The presence of additional police on those streets would give them the illusion of safety, but not actual safety. How can we begin to engage with the public around the idea that we probably need more progressive, targeted responses for working class communities than just having police on the streets? That might give ordinary members of the community an instant feeling that something is happening and that is probably good for their health and nervous systems. I am not saying it does not have any benefits. What I am really asking is how important is the illusion of safety versus real safety. Off the top of Dr. Lambert's head, does she know whether there are studies of what public safety looks like and what are the indicators to measure real safety and imagined safety due to particular measures being taken?