Criminal Justice in a Divided Society: Northern Ireland Prisons

Abstract

Many societies are divided on political, ethnic, religious, national, or linguistic lines; criminal justice systems require strategies to manage the consequences of the resulting conflict and political violence. The prison system in Northern Ireland provides a case study of three contrasting methods of managing divided and politically motivated prisoners. "Reactive containment" is a military-style response of suppression combined with negotiation that treats inmates as prisoners of war. "Criminalization" denies political legitimacy to the practitioners of violence by imposing the symbols and regimes appropriate to ordinary criminals. "Normalization" treats division and a certain level of violence as commonplace, seeks to minimize conflict within the prisons, engages constructively with politically motivated prisoners, and holds the greatest promise for managing political violence without being an obstacle to political progress.