Police Service Of Northern Ireland Research Articles

The Violence of Peace: Post Good Friday Agreement Paramilitary Vigilantism in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on post Belfast/Good Friday Agreement paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland, specifically the vigilantism of paramilitary style attacks (PSAs) carried out by the loyalist and republican paramilitaries. This localised form of violence, formerly referred to as punishment attacks, has been the most persistent form of paramilitary violence in a post-conflict Northern Ireland. This paper critically analyses the broad criminological literature on the emergence of vigilantism, including consideration of factors impacting police confidence. The findings are applied to Northern Irish PSAs from 1998 to 2023. The author analyses data relating to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The results of these FOIs indicate that loyalist and republican paramilitaries combined have been responsible for 3,260 PSAs from 1998 to February 2023. Paramilitary republicans have been responsible for 1,196 attacks and loyalists responsible for 2,064. The article considers the post-Agreement evolution of this violence in terms of victims, injuries, geographical location, and police response. The most recent data indicate a downturn in PSAs. However, there are still significant challenges faced in the development of broader trust for the criminal justice system, within certain areas of Northern Ireland.

Working Time Remedies Beyond Brexit: Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and Another v Agnew and Others

Abstract On 4 October 2023, the ‘long-anticipated’ judgment in PCC v Agnew was handed down by the Supreme Court. This case concerned claims for holiday pay made by police officers and other civilian staff employed by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The Supreme Court had to decide two main issues. The first was whether police officers could take advantage of the more generous remedy provisions in respect of holiday pay claims in the Employment Rights Order 1996 (ERO) (which largely corresponds to the UK Employment Rights Act 1996) as opposed to the Working Time Regulations. The second issue was the correct interpretation of the ERO provisions. As well as the important practical implications of the case, there are also interesting jurisprudential issues that arise. The case deals with the interpretation of European Union (EU) derived rights in the labour context. This is a sensitive area, given that access to EU interpretive mechanisms usually equates to a more progressive reading of rights, and this fans the flame of UK government scepticism to both the EU and working time rights. This article discusses the particular approach to statutory interpretation taken by the Supreme Court and the implications of this approach for the progressive interpretation of EU-derived employment rights going forward.

Forgotten, outdated, and absent: PSNI officer’s training, experiences, and confidence with Autism

ABSTRACT Building on the growing literature examining the multifaceted and complex issues surrounding police interactions with Autistic individuals, this paper examines police officers’ training, experiences, and confidence of policing and interacting with autistic individuals. The paper specifically focuses on the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), which has been completely neglected in the literature to date. The findings are based upon a survey completed by 212 serving PSNI officers across a variety of ranks and years of experience. While there are a range of important findings in relation to training, confidence and available adaptations, the key finding of this paper is that less than one-third of the survey respondents reported receiving training on Autism delivered by the PSNI. Perhaps even more worryingly, less than half of those who had received this training stated that they were ‘satisfied’ with it. These findings suggest that the PSNI need to urgently reform the training provided to their officers to ensure that all officers receive Autism focused training. The study findings demonstrate that this new training programme should require periodic retraining throughout officers’ careers; be designed to provide officers with both the knowledge base and skill set to effectively interact with Autistic individuals in ways that protect their human rights; and be delivered by a specialist organisation or professional, such as Autism NI.

Accounts of vulnerability within positive human rights obligations

AbstractAccounts of human beings as vulnerable have provided powerful reposts to liberal individualism in recent decades. Concurrently, the European Court of Human Rights’ jurisprudence on Convention states’ positive obligations often obliges public authorities to address particular vulnerabilities. These developments reflect elements of different theoretical accounts of vulnerability but lack a coherent approach to the human subject. Exploring the impact of this in the UK Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, we evaluate two case studies in which positive obligations have been imposed on the police; (1) public order in the context of inter-community tensions in Northern Ireland (DB v. Chief Constable of Police Service of Northern Ireland) and (2) police investigations in regard to serial sexual offending (Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis v. DSD). This jurisprudence illustrates how some domestic judges are supplying their decisions with rationalisations which are lacking in the European Court’s case law.

Społeczne i kulturowe uwarunkowania i ograniczenia procesu pokojowego w Irlandii Północnej

Social and Cultural Conditions and Limitations of the Northern Ireland Peace ProcessThe conflict in Northern Ireland, sometimes called “the Troubles” (by British government), sometimes called “war” (by nationalists), has lasted since 1921. The article presents the historical, structural and cultural background of the conflict in Ulster. Two main communities – Catholic and Protestant – are divided because of lots of reasons: one of them is different interpretation of history (“imagined histories”). On the social level the dominant position of the Protestant community was supported by a system of discrimination. The two conflicted communities are integrated around different sets of values, symbols and norms, and their sense of belonging and group membership is connected with different ethnic identities.The peace process started in 1998 (Good Friday Agreement). Since then considerable changes have been implemented in order to end the political, social and cultural discrimination of the minority Catholic community. Changes (reforms) at the governmental level, like establishing the new Northern Ireland Assembly and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, are very important. But equally important are changes on cultural and symbolic levels because they create space to re-defining ethnic identities. A good example of this could be the Re-Imaging Communities Programme, an initiative launched in 2006 by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. The idea of the programme is to change – in cooperation with local people and artists – sectarian and militant murals into neutral ones and create more friendly public space.

From special powers to legislating the lockdown: the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020

The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020 were made through temporarily inserted provisions by Westminster’s vast and rushed Coronavirus Act 2020. This itself limits duties to notify deaths to the coroner, despite Article 2 European Convention on Human Rights duties being particularly relevant to deaths in care homes and of frontline workers. The regularly amended March 2020 Northern Ireland regulations have themselves raised ‘legal certainty’ issues. Until June, official websites carried no accessible information as to their scope. Initial concerns on lack of clarity over matters such as driving for exercise gave way to greater controversy regarding the application of the regulations to the Black Lives Matter protests on 6 June 2020 through Police Service of Northern Ireland powers that had only been extended through an eleventh hour amendment the night before. The enforcement powers themselves are so widely drafted that they are reminiscent of the Special Powers Acts of the past. These issues are explored in this article.

Is It Time to De-Proscribe Terrorist Organisations in Northern Ireland?

ABSTRACT In 2017 an application to de-proscribe The Red Hand Commando (RHC) loyalist paramilitary organisation was submitted by an organisation known as the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) which has the backing of other proscribed loyalist groups including the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and RHC. The application was understandably considered negatively by some relatives of RHC victims as well as by Sinn Féin. The application was rejected for failing to comply with the necessary process of de-proscription which reinforces the criticism and difficulty for proscribed organisations that are no longer engaged in terrorism to de-proscribe. If the Northern Ireland Assembly and Commissions set up in Northern Ireland (NI) following the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) with support from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) are to dismantle paramilitary groups, then they must take bold decisions and decide whether it is time to support the de-proscription of paramilitary groups that have relinquished political violence. This article recommends that agencies should set out a staged process which can be followed by proscribed organisations in NI interested in applying for de-proscription thereby enabling them to self-evaluate whether or not they are ready for de-proscription.

Through the looking glass: memory, myth and policing the past

ABSTRACT The legacy of the Northern Ireland conflict continues to weigh heavily on the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s institutional memory and contemporary policing practices. In this paper, we argue that the tension between competing interpretations of organisational memory and the need to ‘police’ the past has contributed to a ‘through the looking glass’ phenomenon as regards the policing past and efforts to ‘deal with’ the legacy of the Northern Ireland conflict. The article opens with an examination of the contested memory of policing in Northern Ireland. We then explore how, on the one hand, from a policing perspective, dealing with the past has been regarded as an opportunity to ‘celebrate’ aspects of the policing past but on the other, has reinforced a desire to ‘censure’ the less palatable aspects of police conduct during the conflict. Relatedly, we then interrogate how this desire to ‘secure the past’ has translated into the argument that existing and prospective mechanisms of truth recovery risk ‘re-writing’ the history of the conflict. Finally, the article considers how efforts at truth recovery have been acted upon and received by contemporary policing bodies. This part of the article lays bare both the practical challenges of ‘doing’ truth recovery within a policing framework and the need to ‘secure’ the memory of the policing past. The conclusion argues for the separation of policing and ‘the past’ and the removal of legacy work from policing bodies whose predecessor force was both a victim and perpetrator of that legacy of political violence.

From special powers to legislating the lockdown: the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020

The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020 were made through temporarily inserted provisions by Westminster’s vast and rushed Coronavirus Act 2020. This itself limits duties to notify deaths to the coroner, despite Article 2 European Convention on Human Rights duties being particularly relevant to deaths in care homes and of frontline workers. The regularly amended March 2020 Northern Ireland regulations have themselves raised ‘legal certainty’ issues. Until June, official websites carried no accessible information as to their scope. Initial concerns on lack of clarity over matters such as driving for exercise gave way to greater controversy regarding the application of the regulations to the Black Lives Matter protests on 6 June 2020 through Police Service of Northern Ireland powers that had only been extended through an eleventh hour amendment the night before. The enforcement powers themselves are so widely drafted that they are reminiscent of the Special Powers Acts of the past. These issues are explored in this article.

From special powers to legislating the lockdown: the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020

The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020 were made through temporarily inserted provisions by Westminster’s vast and rushed Coronavirus Act 2020. This itself limits duties to notify deaths to the coroner, despite Article 2 European Convention on Human Rights duties being particularly relevant to deaths in care homes and of frontline workers. The regularly amended March 2020 Northern Ireland regulations have themselves raised ‘legal certainty’ issues. Until June, official websites carried no accessible information as to their scope. Initial concerns on lack of clarity over matters such as driving for exercise gave way to greater controversy regarding the application of the regulations to the Black Lives Matter protests on 6 June 2020 through Police Service of Northern Ireland powers that had only been extended through an eleventh hour amendment the night before. The enforcement powers themselves are so widely drafted that they are reminiscent of the Special Powers Acts of the past. These issues are explored in this article.

PSNIRA vs. peaceful protesters? YouTube, sousveillance and the policing of the union flag protests

The decision to change the flag protocol at Belfast City Hall prompted a campaign of loyalist flag protests across Northern Ireland between December 2012 and March 2013. Although most passed off without incident, a small number ended in violent clashes between loyalists and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). Activists uploaded footage to YouTube purporting to show ‘heavy-handed’ policing during these incidents. This paper uses a thematic analysis to examine 1,586 comments left by those who viewed 36 ‘sousveillance’ videos. Results indicate that these conformed to and reinforced competing narratives on policing within the deeply divided society. Those who perceived the ‘PSNIRA’ as being complicit in Sinn Fein’s ‘culture war’ against loyalists were likely to believe the claims of the protesters, even in the absence of corroborative evidence in these videos. The same was true for critics of the protests watching footage of loyalists threatening PSNI officers.

A ‘Culture of Justification’? Police Interpretation and Application of the Human Rights Act 1998

The near-exclusive focus of public law scholarship on judges as the interpreters and appliers of the Human Rights Act 1998 is entirely understandable given the judiciary’s constitutional role to authoritatively determine the scope of human rights law. But what I want to suggest in this paper is that if we extend our gaze just a bit further, into the realm of public administration, there are parallel communities of interpretation whose understandings and applications of human rights are well worthy of examination in their own right. The paper presents a case study of one such ‘interpretive community’ to explore what a ‘culture of justification’ within public administration might look like: the public order commanders of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, tasked with policing contentious parades and protests. The paper introduces a ‘culture of justification’ as an aspirational vision of public administration and the merits of an empirically-grounded inquiry of it. Marshalling data from qualitative research with the PSNI, the paper examines the legal training and advice police commanders are given to promote a rights-based approach to public order policing. It proceeds to explore how human rights law is practised by commanders, revealing how they use human rights to manage positive duties, as well as ‘trouble’ from police oversight bodies.

Now you see it, now you don’t: On the (in)visibility of police stop and search in Northern Ireland

Police stop and search practices have been subject to voluminous debate for over 40 years in the United Kingdom. Yet critical debate related to the use of ‘everyday’ stop and search powers by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has, despite the hyper-accountable policing system of Northern Ireland, been marked by its absence. This article presents the first ever analysis of PSNI’s use of PACE-type powers (Police and Criminal Evidence (NI) Order 1989) – currently used at a higher rate and with poorer outcomes compared to the rest of the UK. While it can only be considered as an elusive power, about which detailed research evidence is markedly lacking, stop and search in Northern Ireland seems to serve as a classificatory tool for PSNI to control mainly young, socio-economically marginal male populations. The article provides new theoretical insight into stop and search as a simultaneous overt and covert practice, and speaks to wider issues of mundane police power – and practice – within highly contested and politically fractured contexts.

Can diversity promote trust? Neighbourhood context and trust in the police in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACTThe association between trust in the police and neighbourhood context is well known. Police seem to enjoy more trust when community settings are perceived as orderly, cohesive and well-functioning, and trust seems to be lower when order and cohesion seem attenuated or under threat. Yet, little attention has been paid to the association between neighbourhood diversity and trust in the police. Allport's contact hypothesis suggests that because diversity increases intergroup contact and thus a sense of cohesion, it may promote trust in the police. We use data from a nationally representative survey conducted in 2014, combined with Census and other local-area data, to explore the association between ethno-religious diversity and trust in the Police Service of Northern Ireland. We find that trust is higher in more diverse areas, primarily because Catholics living in such areas report significantly higher levels of trust than their counterparts living in less diverse areas. We interpret these results in light of what policing means in contemporary Northern Ireland, almost two-decades after the country's landmark reform of policing began.

Place-based Statistical Versus Clinical Predictions of Crime Hot Spots and Harm Locations in Northern Ireland

A mature body of evidence exists on the utility of clinical versus statistical-prediction of criminal behavior. Less is known about the predictive validity of either model in terms of spatial distribution of crime. How accurately do experts—i.e. frontline-officers—predict which geographic areas to target with preventative tactics? Research on crime and place shows distinctively that incidents concentrate spatially within “recidivist” hotspots. Statistical predictions based on this spatial persistence characteristic of hot spots can serve as a comparator for the prediction capacity based on professional judgment. We turn to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, where we compared “Waymarkers,” maps drawn as a predictive tool for deployment purposes, against recidivist street segments based on statistical analyses. While statistical “hot spots” and “harmspots” accurately predict future incidents, Waymarkers are nearly always misplaced. Professional judgement inaccurately locates future spatial crime concentrations, and is more suited to identifying appropriate responses. We conclude that preventative policing ought to be based on statistical forecasting, rather than on professional judgment.

Slandail: A Security System for Language and Image Analysis - Project No: 607691

In major events, such as natural disasters, the amount of data shared through social media increases dramatically. It is difficult for individuals to monitor this large amount of information. Disaster response agencies, including fire services, police, ambulance services and disaster management agencies, use social networks – Facebook, Instagram – and social media systems – Twitter, WhatsApp – during the different phases of disaster management (preparedness, response, mitigation and recovery) both as inputs and outputs for relevant information (Lindsay 2016). SLANDAIL explored the impact of social media in emergencies and harnesses information generated during disaster events to enhance control room systems for emergency management. It synthesised expertise in emergency management, text and image analytics, communication, ethics and law to present a system for leveraging social media data for the security of citizens in vulnerable areas, supported by a customised License Agreement. Our research developed the necessary technical capabilities and addressed the social and ethical implications of an integrated control room system for emergency management. SLANDAIL enabled tracking of the informational evolution of disaster events using natural language processing and machine learning techniques, such as topic modelling and statistical machine learning, in English, German and Italian. The importance of language in disaster management resulted in the creation of guidelines for communications for disaster managers to enhance trust, authority, clarity and empathy. Non-verbal communication analysis, including facial expressions, vocal quality and gesture recognition in real-life announcements of impending disasters, were incorporated to improve emergency management communication techniques. SLANDAIL developed response tools to operate within an ethical framework. Our legal research culminated in the development of a model license agreement – the first of its kind – for a social media analysis system for disaster response, ensuring that the system’s operation complies with EU and national Data Protection legislation and with human rights initiatives related to privacy and security. SLANDAIL prototypes were evaluated positively by disaster management and disaster recovery experts, and partners have engaged technology transfer organisations for the subsequent commercialisation of the systems and technologies developed during the project with state organisations and venture funds. SLANDAIL produced a prototype that integrates social media input from text and image into disaster management control room software. The integrated system incorporates advances in text and image analytics and links software built using research from three universities and development by two SMEs. It was specified and tested by (i) police forces An Garda Siochana, Ireland, and Police Service of Northern Ireland, UK, (ii) army reserves Bundesministerium der Verteidigung, Saxony, Germany, (iii) civil protection authorities Protezione Civile de Veneto, Italy and (iv) media communications experts (Stillwater Communications, Ireland). It has been presented to large meetings of disaster managers in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Germany and Italy and evaluated by experts in emergency planning (Business Continuity Institute, Emergency Planning Society).

Publication of children’s images, privacy and Article 8: judgment in the matter of An Application by JR38 for Judicial Review (Northern Ireland) [2015] UKSC 42

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Fighting Talk: The Statements of “The IRA/New IRA”

With the advent of the new violent dissident merger, “The IRA/New IRA,” the group and its affiliates have had to legitimise their new existence. They have utilised the maintenance of paramilitary activity to achieve this. However, they have also produced a number of organisational statements, justifying their position, tactics, and strategies. This article analyses the evolution of these statements, both pre and post-merger from 2007 to 2015. 126 individual statements and four magazines are analysed using grounded theory. This analysis found that the statements have a dual strategy, aiming to foster trust in the movement and distrust in their perceived enemies. One of the dominant ways in which the group aims to foster trust is by proposing their possession of an historical mandate from the republican forefathers of 1916, as well as the internally lauded paramilitaries from The Troubles-era Provisional Irish Republican Army. The focus of the distrust narrative has been on the “constitutional nationalism” of Sinn Féin. However, it also pours scorn on the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and capitalism, across the island of Ireland. The analysis of these statements can provide us with an understanding of the future direction of the group, as well as giving us insight, which can inform the development of any counter-narrative.

Variations in the Journey from Crime: Examples from Tiger Kidnapping

AbstractThe current paper explores the journey offenders make after their offence through a series of tiger kidnap offences from the north and south of Ireland. Tiger kidnap is the abduction of a person of importance to a victim (generally a bank manager) in which that person is used as collateral until the victim complies with the requests of the offenders. Data were provided by the Police Service of Northern Ireland and An Garda Siochana. Three stages of the offences were highlighted: (1) the journey from the abduction location to the hostage location; (2) the abduction location to the robbery location; and (3) the robbery location to the money exchange location. Analysis found significant difference between offences in the north and south for stages 1 and 2 but not for stage 3. This is due to the type of offenders committing the offence, for example, offences in the north being committed by ex‐paramilitary offenders. Further study should focus on understanding complex tiger kidnap offences. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Desmond Rea and Robin Masefield. Policing in Northern Ireland: Delivering the new Beginning?

This book outlines the development of policing reform in Northern Ireland (NI) between 1999 and 2009; largely from the perspective of the first Chair of the NI Policing Board with some early year insights from the government perspective. Heretofore accounts of progress were largely narratives on attainment of targets, now for the first time we have a qualitative ‘insider’ account. However, an overview of the process remains partial until those of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Police Ombudsman become known. The book describes some of the key challenges dealt with by the Board in isolation from other concurrent issues underplaying the enormity of what the Board achieved. Readers should be mindful that reform took place while policing continued to be delivered and in the face of a number of competing demands connected to the wider peace process including violence from dissident republicans and party politics. The politicking the Board had to mediate was based on competing viewpoints, on one hand policing was the problem and must change; whereas for others the problem was those using violence for political purposes, thus if violence stopped the police could revert to a more community focused service.