Brendan Hughes from the Irish News has an interesting story in today’s Irish News about the level of crime reported during St Patrick’s Day and the 12th July from the 2009-2015 period where he finds little difference between the two events.
In his examination he reports;
We also studied figures for the 36-hour period surrounding each date – from 6pm on March 16 and July 11, to 6am on March 18 and July 13.
The Twelfth comes out on top when looking at the single day only, with an average of 405 offences compared to 379 on St Patrick’s Day.
The average number of crimes reported on other days of the year, based on police figures from 2008/09 to 2014/15, was 288.
However, when looking at the 36-hour period the St Patrick’s holiday had more crimes.
It had 590 on average, compared to 578 during the Twelfth period and a 36-hour average across the year of 432.
The most common crimes reported across the 36-hour period of both holidays were assault with injury and criminal damage.
Since 2009 there have been 881 and 849 assaults with injury reported on St Patrick’s and the Twelfth respectively, and 981 and 881 reports of criminal damage.
David McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs
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