With a tenuous peace now holding in Northern Ireland, the controversial police force–the Royal Ulster Constabulary–is facing the most radical changes in its 76-year history.
Northern Ireland has, until recently, been one of the most dangerous spots on Earth to be a police officer. In 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland, 301 police have lost their lives and 8,300 have been injured.
A new government commission headed by Chris Patten, former governor of Hong Kong and a former Northern Ireland minister, will begin public hearings this fall on these and other changes and will report its recommendations to the government in June.
Unlike other British police, officers of the 13,500-member RUC routinely wear heavy body armor while on duty and carry guns on and off duty. Their police stations are fortresses, with high steel walls and steel caging around them to try to deflect rocket, mortar and car-bomb attacks. Their patrol cars are military-style armored vehicles.
Most of the world’s police officers killed or maimed in their work have been attacked while trying to apprehend criminals. In Northern Ireland, however, police have been attacked off-duty, in their homes, in pubs or in shopping centers.
They have been blown to pieces by bombs placed under their cars, shot with high-powered rifles, burned by Molotov cocktails, bludgeoned with bricks and stones, mowed down by rockets and mortars. They also have been driven from their homes by threats to them and their families–27 of them just as a result of recent police action in blocking a Protestant Orange Order march at Drumcree.
Ninety-three percent of RUC officers are Protestant, and 89 percent are men. Over the next generation, Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan says he is determined that those imbalances be corrected. But at the same time he seeks to recruit more women and Roman Catholics, he will be required to cut the force by almost half, to around 7,500 or 8,000, and rein in its $600 million annual budget.
The RUC has barred officers from giving interviews about the impending reforms, but there is general acknowledgment that many find the process unsettling–especially the prospect of losing their jobs–and some are deeply resentful.
Many officers also are angry that the peace agreement provides for the release of prisoners convicted of terrorist crimes and does not require Catholic and Protestant paramilitary groups to disarm.
“There is a great sense of hurt,” said Chris Ryder, a former member of a police oversight body called the Police Authority and the author of a history of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. “After the sacrifices they have made over the years, many have a sense that all this will be written off.”
Like most institutions in Northern Ireland, the Royal Ulster Constabulary is highly controversial. Hostility and mistrust toward the police in the Catholic community are widespread. In recent years, the force has encountered the same from some Protestants.
At various times in the past, the RUC has been accused of assaulting prisoners during interrogation and of maintaining a shoot-to-kill policy against terrorists. Its use of plastic bullets to put down riots–something not allowed in Britain–also has produced criticism.
Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, accuses the overwhelmingly Protestant force of bias. However, the IRA has repeatedly sought to intimidate Catholics who join the RUC and has killed some of them.
Catholics who join sometimes face religious harassment from colleagues. An internal RUC survey found that nearly one-third of Catholic officers had such experiences and more than a fifth had considered leaving for that reason.
Others say that while there have been some bad apples in the RUC, it is a highly professional force that takes pride in upholding the law without regard to the religious affiliation of those who break it.
“Whatever their faults, the RUC is a body of men and women of unrivaled courage and dedication to the community they police,” Ryder wrote in his book, “The RUC 1922-1997.”
“They represent all that is best about the good people of Northern Ireland, and they are truly the cement that holds the divided community together.”
He points to the fact that, despite tremendous provocation, there have been only three or four instances in 30 years of police officers’ taking the law into their own hands. The most notorious instance involved an officer who killed three people in the Sinn Fein offices in Belfast before committing suicide.
One recent poll suggests that 75 percent of the population believe the Royal Ulster Constabulary is doing a good job. The force got a 90 percent favorable rating from Protestants and just over 50 percent from Catholics.
Sam Malcolmson, a spokesman for the Disabled Police Officers Association, and fellow retired officer Monty Alexander are bitter over the plan for reform and say it is purely due to pressure from Sinn Fein.
Malcolmson’s history helps explain some of the strong emotions that surround the issue. He was on duty in Crossmaglen, in a border region of Northern Ireland known as bandit country, when it happened to him in 1972. He and a fellow officer had gone out of town to retrieve some sensitive equipment left behind after an army lieutenant was killed. On the way back, they ran into an ambush.
Three bullets passed through the middle of Malcolmson’s body. His colleague, Albert McCleary, at the wheel of the car, was shot in the back. McCleary somehow managed to drive the 2 miles back to a police station before collapsing. Both survived, but Malcolmson, just 22 at the time, was paralyzed down his left leg.
Sinn Fein and the mainly Catholic Social Democratic and Labor Party refused to sign the peace agreement reached last April without some guarantee of police reform. Sinn Fein has demanded that the RUC be disbanded and wants the name changed, objecting to the word “royal” because Sinn Fein does not recognize the authority of the British crown.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has assured RUC officers that the force will not be disbanded nor will the name be changed.
Flanagan, widely regarded in Northern Ireland and among police abroad as one of the best leaders of the RUC in its history, has acceded to another Sinn Fein demand, that the British Union Jack not be flown over police stations on holidays that are primarily of significance to Protestants.
There also have been suggestions that police be barred from membership in the Protestant Orange Order or the Catholic Ancient Order of Hibernians. Flanagan has not endorsed a ban but has said he would prefer his officers not to belong to such organizations so as not to bring their impartiality into question.
The police officers association, the Police Federation, and the RUC Widows Association say they have no quarrel with the principle of reform in the RUC, particularly in taking in more Catholics and women. But they object strongly to prisoner releases.
“It is painful, when your husband was denied the right to life, that the people who killed him should be back on the streets,” said Iona Meyer, 41, chairwoman of the widows association. Her husband, Gary, was shot down on a Belfast street in 1990, leaving her with two children, aged 2 and 6, to raise. His killers were never caught.
“We are totally appalled at what the government is doing in releasing prisoners,” said Sgt. Les Rodgers, chairman of the Police Federation. “There are some people who should never be let out. Our members feel very strongly about it.”
