Police Powers in Ireland covers everything you need to know about police powers in the context of the investigation of crime, as well as general interactions between the members of An Garda Síochána and the public. This book examines the legal issues that arise, with an emphasis on the practicalities of policing.Alongside an analysis of up-to-date case law, this book traces the history of the force, its duties and powers, and details the importance of human rights.The Second Edition covers:- The significant changes to the law on drawing adverse inferences- The changes which DPP v JC had on the exclusionary rule- Damache v DPP, dealing with the competing interests between state and the accused- Observation, surveillance and phone-tapping- Visual ID (parades, videos, photos)This is a must-have guide to the duties, powers and history of An Garda Síochána for criminal practitioners, judges and academics; a necessity in any criminal lawyer's briefcase. This title is included in Bloomsbury Professional's Irish Criminal Law online service.

The police force in Ireland - known as the Gardai ("Guardian") - are required to combine technical and legal proficiency in the prevention and detection of crime. Expected to intervene in every kind of emergency, Gardai investigate a diverse array of offenses, combining skills in crowd control, crime scene management, intelligence-gathering, and the collection and analysis of forensic evidence. In order to fulfill their various functions, the Gardai are vested with an extraordinary array of powers - powers which facilitate surveillance; the taking of forensic samples; photographs and fingerprints; stopping, searching, and arresting individuals; as well as searching homes and vehicles. Suspects are detained and questioned, children are taken into emergency care, mentally ill persons are taken into custody. Each situation is not only complicated on a human level, but on a legal level as well, as the powers exercised intersect with constitutional and legal rights to liberty, privacy, bodily integrity, freedom of association, and expression. In England and Wales, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 is accompanied by extensive PACE Codes of Conduct. There is a core framework of police powers and safeguards - clearly laid out - around stop and search, arrest, detention, investigation, identification, and interviewing detainees. However, in Ireland, an unwieldy array of legislation and case-law must be sifted through to decipher the applicable principles. The pace of legislative change in Irish criminal justice, combined with the practice of amending Acts piecemeal rather than by consolidation, makes identification of the extent and scope of the powers of the Gardai a challenge which is grappled with by Gardai and legal practitioners alike. This book examines Garda powers and the legal issues which arise in their exercise, with an emphasis on the practicalities of policing. The law is distilled to determine the origin of key powers and the pre-requisites and practical aspects of their lawful exercise. The approaches of the courts and police forces of other common-law jurisdictions to particular policing questions are considered. Best practice guidance has been incorporated, grounded in human rights principles and international standards.

This book assesses the powers, practices, and processes of Garda (Ireland's police force) for compliance with international best practice in human rights standards. It offers a unique critique of the law, policy, and practice on policing in Ireland from a human rights perspective. The book is divided into four sections, with Part I examining human rights and policing in general. It offers a detailed and comprehensive account of human rights standards applicable to key aspects of policing, such as: arrest * detention * interrogation * the right of access to legal advice and medical treatment * the taking bodily samples * stop and question/search * entry, search, and seizure * surveillance * the use of informers * the improper use of intelligence * public order * the use of force * the treatment of victims * the treatment of ethnic minorities * complaints * internal discipline * accountability to the law * governance and democratic accountability * gender and diversity in the composition of the police organization * the rights of police officers with respect to trade union membership, political activity, and disciplinary procedures. The human rights standards on each of these aspects are extracted from international sources, such as: the European Convention on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, the Council of Europe's Code of Police Ethics, the reports of the Council of Europe's Committee on the Prevention of Torture, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, and examples of best practice from other jurisdictions. This is supplemented by an account of relevant Irish human rights standards as extracted from Ireland's Constitution, the common law, and legislation. On each of these key aspects of policing, attention is drawn to how and where Irish law falls short of international best practice and what is needed to remedy the deficiencies. Part II offers a structured and comprehensive account of the human rights concerns that have affected policing in Ireland over the past decade or so. It gives an overview of the human rights failings that have been revealed by sources, such as: the Morris Tribunal of Inquiry into events in Donegal * the Barr Tribunal into the fatal shooting of John Carthy at Abbeylara * the Garda Siochana Complaints Board and Ombudsman Commission * the European Committee on the Prevention of Torture * judgments from Irish courts * the Ionann Human Rights Audit on the Garda * investigative journalism. Part III offers a critique of the Garda policies and processes that have been and are being taken to address the human rights deficiencies outlined in Part II. This includes an expert analysis of the internal formulation and dissemination of human rights policies and the monitoring of compliance with those policies and human rights standards within the force. In Part IV, the book concludes with a body of broad recommendations on the further actions that are needed to ingrain human rights standards at the heart of all aspects of policing in Ireland.

Police detention is the place where suspects are taken whilst their case is investigated and a case disposal decision is reached. It is also a largely hidden, but vital, part of police work and an under-explored aspect of police studies. This book provides a much-needed comparative perspective on police detention. It examines variations in the relationship between police powers and citizens’ rights inside police detention in cities in four jurisdictions (in Australia, England, Ireland and the US), exploring in particular the relative influence of discretion, the law and other rule structures on police practices, as well as seeking to explain why these variations arise and what they reveal about state-citizen relations in neoliberal democracies. This book draws on data collected in a multi-method study in five cities in Australia, England, Ireland and the US. This entailed 480 hours of observation, as well as 71 semi-structured interviews with police officers and detainees. Aside from filling in the gaps in the existing research, this book makes a significant contribution to debates about the links between police practices and neoliberalism. In particular, it examines the police, not just the prison, as a site of neoliberal governance. By combining the empirical with the theoretical, the main themes of the book are likely to be of utmost importance to contemporary discussions about police work in increasingly unequal societies. As a result, it will also have a wide appeal to scholars and students, particularly in criminology and criminal justice.

Criminal Law: Cases and Commentary is designed to help law students to understand the fundamental rules, principles and policy considerations that govern the criminal law in Ireland.

This new, revised and expanded edition brings back into print an excellent resource for those interested in the history of the RIC and the revolutionary period generally. In the period 1816 to 1922 some 85,000 men served in the RIC and its predecessor forces. Information on all these policemen is available, constituting a quarry for their descendants in Ireland, the US and elsewhere. The book consists of chapters on the history of policing in Ireland (to illustrate the type of men in the Force, their background and their lifestyle etc.), followed by a section on 'Tracing your ancestors in the RIC'. New appendices to this edition identify members of the RIC who were rewarded for their service during the Young Ireland Rising, 1848; the Fenian Rising, 1867; the Easter Rising, 1916; and the War of Independence, 1919-21. Also members of the RIC who volunteered for service in the Mounted Staff Corps and the Commissariat during the Crimean War; members who served as drivers and orderlies on secondment to the Irish Hospital in the South African War in 1900; and members who served in the British Army in the First World War are identified. RIC recipients of the King George V, Coronation (Police) Medal, 1911; the Constabulary Medal; and the Kings Police Medal are listed, as are ex-RIC men who transferred to the Royal Ulster Constabulary in 1922 and received additional bravery medals. [Subject: 19th Century History, 20th Century History, Policing, Genealogy & Archives, Ireland]

Framing two men for a murder that never occurred. Orchestrating fake IRA bomb 'finds' either side of the border. Planting guns and drugs. False arrests, abuse of detainees, and securing false confessions. These were the institutionalized activities in the Donegal division of Siochana that were the subject of a landmark tribunal conducted by Justice Morris. In October 2008, after six years, the Morris Tribunal completed its work. Its findings catalogued corruption, negligence, misconduct, and 'a blue wall of silence' in an Garda Siochana, on an unprecedented scale. The reports also highlight the inadequacies of existing accountability systems that were reformed substantially mid-way through the work of the Tribunal, by the Garda Siochana Act 2005. The findings and recommendations of the Tribunal are particularly striking in a country where public confidence in the police has historically been exceptionally high, and criticisms of the police slow to be aired. The Blue Wall of Silence questions what contribution the Tribunal has made to the accountability of the Garda Siochana, asking not just whether it has held the Gardai involved to account, but also what impact it has had on both the accountability apparatus and broader public and political attitudes towards an Garda Siochana. Has the Tribunal fundamentally altered perceptions of the Irish police or has its work been dismissed as a blip caused by a few rotten apples? Justice Morris warned that, without substantial reform, the activities documented could reoccur elsewhere in Ireland. Has a sufficient level of reform been achieved? In addressing these questions, the book makes a substantial contribution to national and international debates on police accountability, raising within democratic societies the crucial relationships between official inquiries, policy reform, and police governance.

This the fourth edition gives an up-to-date account of the law of evidence in Ireland. The text is of interest to all those working in the Irish legal system, the criminal legal system in particular as well as to policy makers and those studying more general issues related to matters of trial, adjudication and fact-finding in various contexts. It explores the development of a particular Irish dimension to evidence scholarship, which is based on constitutional notions of fairness. In light of the incorporation of the ECHR, this must continue to be influential in this and possibly other jurisdictions. The phenomenon of the Special Criminal Court is considered and ithe Criminal Justice (Forensic Evidence and DNA Database System) Act 2014 is also considered in detail.

Police reform, one of the most hotly debated issues in Northern Ireland, is at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement. This timely and dispassionate book examines the status quo and puts forward reasoned proposals to help create representative, impartial, decentralised, demilitarised and democratically accountable policing services - proposals which respect the identities and ideas of unionists, nationalists and others.