Policing the Peace In Northern Ireland Politics, Crime and Security After the Belfast Agreement

by Moran, Jon

• ISBN13: 9780719074721
• ISBN10: 071907472X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-04-01
• Publisher: Manchester University Press

Summary

This timely and controversial book shows how crime, and the response of the authorities to it, became central to the peace process in Northern Ireland. At times, paramilitary activity threatened to destabilize the peace in Northern Ireland after 1998, but crime was central to maintaining capacity should the groups return to war. Over time, the reduction of crime was central to these groups' own attempts to reform and official judgements as to whether they were genuinely demobilizing. The state's response to crime added controversy. Police reform produced the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the new Organised Crime Task Force signalled the importance of crime control, but the Asset Recovery Agency, supposedly the 'magic bullet' for organised crime, misfired. Law enforcement was also deeply affected by the British state's response to paramilitary crime. By 2007, peace was apparently secure and paramilitaries were "de-criminalizing," but this often chaotic process was marked with questions about the British state's adherence to the rule of law. Incorporating first-hand research in the PSNI, the book will be of interest to general readers and scholars of Irish Studies, criminology, and British and comparative politics.

Author Biography

Jon Moran is Reader in Criminal Justice at the School of Legal Studies, University of Wolverhampton.

Table of Contents

List of tables	p. vi
Abbreviations	p. vii
Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Politics, policing and crime as an issue in Northern Ireland after the peace process	p. 1
The republican movement: politics, crime and transition	p. 23
Loyalist paramilitaries: violence, crime and legitimacy	p. 52
'Ordinary decent' organised and volume crime	p. 83
From RUC to PSNI: police reform and modernisation	p. 102
Policing serious and volume crime	p. 126
Political policing? The Organised Crime Task Force and the Assets Recovery Agency	p. 151
Counter-terrorist policing	p. 177
Conclusion	p. 192
Glossary	p. 200
Interviews	p. 215
Bibliography	p. 217
Index	p. 231
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