This article is from page 16 of the 2010-02-02 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 16 JPG
ALMOST 500 children in Clare had brushes with the law in 2008, more than 50 of whom were brought be- fore the courts on charges.
Children under the age of 18 are brought to court on a weekly basis on various charges including public or- der, criminal damage, thefts, motor- ing offences, assaults, or occasion- ally on drugs charges. According to a report presented to the Oireachtas last week, 472 children in Clare were referred to the national garda youth diversion programme in 2008. This was down marginally from 2007 when the figure was 492.
The diversion programme aims to deal with children in a manner other than prosecution and under the scheme, cautions are issued, where the child is suitable. It deals with children between the ages of 10 and 18. However, prosecutions are taken in the childrens’ court, when all oth- er options are exhausted. Prosecu- tions were taken against 54 children in 2008; down from 60 the previous year. Formal cautions were issued against 84 children (107 in 2007); information cautions were given to
279 (267 in 2007); while no further action was taken against 34 children (27 in 2007). At the end of the year, 21 cases were still pending.
There were three times the number of boys getting into trouble with the law, when compared with girls. The figures show that, in Clare, 360 boys were referred to the diversion pro- gramme in 2008, compared to 112 girls.
In Clare, there were 616 referrals to the diversion programme in 2008. This is also marginally down on the figure for 2007, when 625 cases were referred on. The difference between the number of referrals and the number of children referred is that some children were responsible for HOLD Lee om usKourDhS
Of the 616 referrals; 107 were not suitable for the diversion programme. Formal cautions were issued in 130 cases, while information cautions were issued in 318 cases. No further action was taken in 32 cases.
Nationally, there was a decrease of 2.4 per cent in the number of children referred to the diversion programme in 2008. A total of 21,412 children were referred to the programme in Autry