Opinion: There has been a seismic shift in the way drugs gangs intimidate their victims

I have been working in the area of drug addiction and drug-related intimidation for 30 years within communities across Dublin. The escalation of violence we see now is oceans apart from the ways criminals sorted their differences in the past. There has been a frightening shift in recent times, in which petrol bombs, arson attacks and threats have become the norm; and innocent people and extended family members are being treated as leverage in the violent and intimidating enforcement of sometimes small drug debts.The ease with which innocent families become embroiled in drug debts is terrifying. A young person gets drugs on credit, or takes some to sell and – for whatever reason – can’t repay the debt. Or they may be asked to sell drugs to pay for their habit. In some cases, a young person has taken some drugs to sell to feed their own habit, and the drugs are subsequently stolen – usually by another young person within the same drugs gang. And then a more senior criminal comes knocking at the door looking for their drugs and their money, and the young person has neither. The threats and intimidation start. Suddenly the whole family is involved.Parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles are all now apparently fair game when it comes to the enforcement of drug debts. These families face an impossible demand: pay off the debt and support the criminal gang or live in terror of the consequences.Physical beatings – people with black eyes and other injuries – have always been part of the picture. Now petrol bombs and arson attacks are part of it too, usually intended as intimidation.READ MOREThe Irish Times reported this week that data gathered from 14 local authorities nationwide revealed there were 113 arson attacks on council properties in the past five years, including 50 in the past year alone. The four local authorities in Dublin had recorded 59 attacks since 2022, 35 of those last year.Just this week a conference in Portlaoise heard that there were more than 1,000 incidents of drug-related intimidation reported in a two-year period. And those are just the reported instances. Most debts involved ranged from €1,000 to €5,000, though 39 incidents related to amounts of more than €20,000.In parallel to the physical attacks and arson, social media is increasingly being used as a tool of intimidation. Beatings – and, in some horrifying cases, sexual violence – are carried out and videoed to be deployed as blackmail and humiliation, with the threat that they will be passed around on texting apps or posted to social media. Or young people are threatened with their drug habit being exposed to their family if they fail to pay back a debt, or refuse to commit criminal acts on command by way of repayment. It’s a modern-day form of debt bondage.In some ways, even more distressing than the bruises or evidence of violence is the shock, trauma, isolation and sheer terror of people who are forced into a prolonged silent battle with their own, or a family member’s, drug dealer. Many young people feel they cannot reach out to family members or trusted adults for fear of reprisal or further violence. They often feel they have no choice but to comply with the orders they are given by the dealers and their cronies.And it’s not exclusively the very young or people in disadvantaged areas who get caught up in this. In one case I worked with recently, a middle-class man in his 30s with a good job and a cocaine addiction got into debt. He was summoned to a meeting with his dealer, where he was threatened with a gun. He ended up moving out of the family home to try to protect his elderly parents. Ultimately his sister used her savings to repay his debt.In that sense, he was one of the lucky ones. Most of the young people I meet through my work don’t have those kind of resources – either financial or someone they feel able to ask for help.Young people’s brains – particularly young males – have underdeveloped impulse control and a propensity to risk-taking. Most young people will thankfully age out of risky behaviours without harming themselves or their community. But for young people who find themselves moving in a circle where drug-taking is the norm, there is a risk they will get involved in drugs and then in antisocial behaviour and intimidation. Couple that with the psychological and physiological grip drugs can have on a person, and their underdeveloped critical thinking skills, and it becomes a perfect storm.Wherever there are drugs, there is drug-related intimidation – not just in big cities, but in every small town and village in Ireland. We need much more than a policing response to deal with this. We need immediate crisis protocols that include psychological first aid and long-term safeguarding – particularly in schools. Teachers are well placed to observe sudden absenteeism, behavioural shifts that might suggest addiction, or unexplained designer clothes. In a perfect world, these red flags should trigger a multi-agency response, but this doesn’t always happen at a time of overstretched resources.We need immediate interruption to the violence that we see damaging community cohesion. In some parts of the country, criminal gangs have what we call “a coercive hold” over entire areas. This can’t be broken by policing alone, although as a matter of urgency, violent actors must be made accountable. Periods in custody need to be meaningful and rehabilitative.Every Garda station has a dedicated member to support victims of drug-related intimidation. Ultimately people need to feel secure that action will be taken and they will be protected if they reach out for help. This means An Garda Síochána need to have the time and resources to provide the confidential supports and guidance needed by targets of drugs-related intimidation at the most terrifying and vulnerable time of their lives.We need to further invest in local community centres, second-chance education, addiction services, youth clubs and sporting facilities to create safe havens for families, children and communities.Most of all, we can’t just resign ourselves to a situation where parts of the country are becoming no-go areas by the design of drug gangs.Trina O’Connor is a criminologist and community activist with master’s degrees in criminology from Dublin Institute of Technology and Maynooth University