A perpetual state of emergency: subverting the rule of law in Ireland

It is not difficult to find, in Ireland, traces of what David Garland would call the "crime complex". Such phenomena include the politicisation of law and order, increases in maximum sentences, prison expansionism, the curtailment of judicial discretion in certain circumstances, legislative control of groups such as convicted sex offenders, a developing pro-victim/witness momentum, and the increased dissociation of the offender from the state and society. It is also true, however, that many of the phenomena outlined are surface events which are not yet constitutive of a new penal order in Ireland. They remain largely peripheral rather than governing principles of the criminal justice system. It still remains to be seen whether such phenomena will develop into a new structural pattern of control or will be marginalized.