Alice Connors was jailed last month for a series of thefts from elderly people in their homes. The 36-year-old was described in court as a “career criminal”, an accurate term for a woman who pursued her calling with singular diligence. She’s a member of the Celtic tiger generation that enjoyed every possible chance to earn honest wealth and comfort during the boom. Instead, she made a life’s work out of relieving old-age pensioners of their savings, using a variety of techniques to con her way into their homes. Sometimes she pretended to know her victims, using the old folks’ decency and confusion to disarm them; other times she brought children as accomplices to help throw her targets off guard.

Connors was sentenced to eight years with the final three suspended, which means she’ll probably serve little more than two in jail. Then she will be free to resume her career where she left off. Before her sentencing on five charges last month, she had notched up 86 previous convictions. It may be that she is spectacularly bad at her chosen career and was caught for every single con and robbery she ever pulled. But it is far more likely that she has stolen from hundreds of old people with impunity and viewed the odd conviction as a minor occupational hazard.

In her defence last month, it was pointed out that Connors has never used force or violence against her victims, which is rare enough when old people are targeted by criminal cowards, though hardly grounds for lenience. Because for each of those 86 charges, an elderly person’s home has been violated and their peace of mind stolen, along with their cash.

Now the nights are longer, old people living alone can forget about resting easy in their beds. The number of petty and opportunistic burglaries has increased since the start of the recession. In the middle of a summer’s day a few months back, I caught a fit, healthy adult man, another devoted careerist, trying to jemmy open my window. Most burglars prefer to avoid an awkward interface with an indignant and able-bodied householder, so my would-be intruder fled. I chased him for several streets until the gardai rescued him.

When the householder is elderly, these types take a more confrontational tack. The likes of Connors will barge right in because they know they have nothing to fear from a frightened pensioner. And they know they have just as little to fear from the law.

The last couple of weeks alone have seen an ominous increase in reported attacks on older people, distinguished by their uncommon viciousness. The magician Keith Barry’s grandfather Paddy died after his Waterford city home was burgled as he sat in front of the television — the old man's presence was no deterrent. And an elderly woman, also in Waterford, was savagely beaten by a gang of intruders.

Each time a fresh atrocity comes to light, a “householder’s charter” for the defence of home and property is cited as the legislative solution to attacks on the elderly. If householders were entitled to harm or even kill an intruder without fear of prosecution it might, goes the theory, make the burglar think twice before breaking into a farmer’s property in the dead of night. Attacks on remote farmhouses in May are said to have declined after Patrick Nally shot John Ward dead, although locals reportedly observed that the burglaries resumed after the farmer was jailed for manslaughter.

But such a law wouldn’t really ease the fear of an attack that, as the Nally case indicated, is a corrosive mental torture as acute as the crime itself. Sitting up awaiting yet another burglary, Nally was almost strung-out on tense exhaustion when he killed Ward. If having a shotgun by his side didn’t allow him to sleep soundly at night, it’s unlikely a legal defence to manslaughter would have been much help either.

Old people don’t want to kill anybody, and knowing you could use lethal force against a burglar would not be much reassurance when you hear a window smash at 3am. The law that will best defend these people is not the one that will let them shoot burglars with legally held rifles — it’s the one that will impose a mandatory jail term on anyone convicted of a violent crime against an old person. It’s the one that will target the assets of “career criminals”, particularly if they’re known to have claimed social welfare benefits while spending the savings of their victims.

It’s high time, too, that the gardai routinely released mug shots of convicted criminals to the media. Attackers of the elderly deserve just as much opprobrium as paedophiles. Shaming, as well as naming, might exert sufficient pressure to make them rethink their “career” choices. If Connors’ face had been well-known to her target group, her mug shot circulated round old folks’ meeting places on her patch, she might have had more trouble persuading them she was a long-lost cousin.

People who pick on the elderly are more reprehensible than those who prey on children, who now get a better hearing and have a lifetime to pursue and expose their attackers. Old people are the “perfect” victims — their lifetime is behind them, represented by years of accumulated valuables all under one roof. They’re too weak to fight off an attack and frequently too traumatised or ashamed to report it. And even if their attackers are caught, a delayed prosecution can mean the chief witness is conveniently dead by the time the case comes to court. What’s not to like about that breed of victim?

The experts say that in 20 years there will be more old people in this country than ever before and, because of improving health care and medication, many will be well enough to live in their own homes among their own belongings and treasures. That’s us they’re talking about. We represent a nice little business opportunity for “career criminals” such as Connors.

If she faced a demand for the repayment of all state benefits she received while pursuing what the law acknowledges was a lucrative “career”, she just might begin to review her occupational options.

Jail alone is not enough to deter these professional thieves. Exposure and notoriety might help, but it’s time the law got a little more creative with crimes that are petty in substance but not in effect.

Loser takes all

A winning Lotto ticket has been taped to my fridge since April. I’ve yet to claim my prize because, like the winners who delayed collecting their €13m jackpot earlier this year, I’m taking some time to come to terms with the idea. The fact that the sum involved is €5 — I was one of 48,000 people who matched three numbers in the draw — is a factor in my hesitation. The pleasure of looking at a winning Lotto ticket is worth at least a fiver of anyone’s money.

The Lotto’s latest wheeze, the all-or-nothing draw in which you win if you match no numbers, is deceptively appealing to luckless players like me. Even if common sense tells you that picking 12 out of 24 numbers that won’t come up is just as long a shot as picking 12 that will, the idea of a payout for getting no numbers right seems an unbeatable deal.

Almost as attractive as the Spanish lottery in which, a letter tells me, an unclaimed prize of over €300,000 awaits. I’m definitely on a roll.

brenda.power@sunday-times.ie

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