U.S. police officers kill a remarkable number of their fellow citizens every year, particularly African Americans and other minorities — many with their hands in the air, their backs turned or their bodies on the ground. Holding those officers accountable has been difficult because of rank-and-file codes of silence, powerful police unions and lax oversight by officials in charge of policing.
These problems are exacerbated by the challenge of instituting reforms across more than 18,000 distinct police forces. Perhaps not surprisingly, many people believe real reform is all but impossible.
In Northern Ireland, 20 years ago, many people said the same thing about their policing system. Northern Ireland now has a functioning and widely respected police force. While one can’t draw direct lessons, Northern Ireland’s experience has some important parallels for today’s U.S. political challenges.
Northern Ireland’s police force was prejudiced against the minority
The Government of Ireland Act of 1920 created two separate governments in Ireland. The southern part was majority Catholic and eventually became what is now the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland, which was majority Protestant, had its own local parliament and security forces but remained part of the United Kingdom. In Northern Ireland, Protestants tended to be Unionists, and favored remaining part of the U.K., while the Catholic minority tended to be Nationalists, who wanted Northern Ireland to become part of a united Ireland.
If Americans know this history, they’re most likely to remember “the Troubles” — the term for the 30 years of violent conflict over Northern Ireland’s status as part of the U.K. But even before that period, Catholics viewed Northern Ireland’s police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), as a police force of and for Protestants, an arm of a government Northern Ireland’s own prime minister described as “a Protestant state”.
Although Catholics in Northern Ireland made up more than 40 percent of the population during that time, they made up less than 5 percent of the police force. As Seamus Mallon, a Nationalist politician, once quipped, the result was a police force that was “97 percent Protestant, 100 percent Unionist”.
The RUC sometimes used grossly disproportionate violence against the Catholic minority; protected misbehavior within its own ranks; violated human rights with impunity, and successfully refused oversight and reform. In the late 1960s the RUC refused to protect Catholic protesters demanding equal civil rights and, in some cases, attacked them violently.
In 1971, the British military arrived, transforming the civil unrest into a low-intensity conflict between Catholic paramilitaries, who believed joining a united Ireland was the only way to achieve real equality, and forces defending the union with Britain, including newly arrived military units, the RUC and Protestant paramilitaries. During the Troubles, British military units often charged the RUC with gathering intelligence, further eroding Catholic trust in the impartiality of the police.
Policing reform helped bring peace to Northern Ireland
In 1998, five of Northern Ireland’s main political parties and the British and Irish governments signed the Good Friday Agreement. Police reform was central to this peace process, with the goal of creating an impartial force that both communities saw as legitimate. An independent international commission engaged Protestant and Catholic communities as well as racial and ethnic minorities to develop a list of recommendations that took into account these groups’ concerns and incorporated best practices in policing. The government largely adopted these into law.
Most important, the police’s role changed. The RUC was formally renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), shifting its mandate from a force designed to protect the union with the U.K. to a service designed to protect the vulnerable. Policing was to be based on the consent of the public rather than the use of force, and implemented in coordination with the community, not delivered by armed outsiders.
Policing and community safety partnerships connected police to local communities, particularly marginalized ones; identified and mitigated crime hot spots, and tailored policing to different constituencies’ needs. Internationally recognized human rights standards became the guiding framework.
In divided societies symbols take on heightened significance. The RUC badge had included references to the British state. The PSNI’s new badges included symbols from both communities. The police prohibited precincts from displaying the Union Jack or the Queen’s portrait.
Practical measures helped change the culture
The PSNI’s changes weren’t just symbolic. The force’s size shrank to be more proportionate to the population, consistent with other parts of the U.K. Generous severance packages allowed many in the old generation to retire, making it possible to hire recruits who supported the new human rights and community service culture. The PSNI adopted a new goal of recruiting half its officers from each community.
Three critical accountability measures helped shore up trust: a police review board made up of members from both communities that supervised the PSNI; an ombudsman to conduct independent investigations of police misconduct, and an international oversight commission to assess progress implementing these goals.
The PSNI still has some distance to go
After two decades, the PSNI still has not met all its goals. For example, its officers are only about 30 percent Catholic. The sectarian paramilitary organizations’ remnants still carry out rough justice on some streets. Building accountability requires constant work and vigilance.
But the reforms have transformed policing. Crime rates have dropped. The Police Ombudsman has exposed and eliminated police collusion. And, large majorities have confidence in the service. Perhaps most telling, the PSNI was able to work with the community to investigate the 2019 murder of Lyra McKee, a Catholic journalist killed by a member of the “New IRA”. During the Troubles, most Catholic neighborhoods were no-go zones for police, and few Catholics turned to the police even if the IRA killed or harmed their own family members. But Lyra McKee’s family asked witnesses to work with the police to find their daughter’s killer.
Northern Ireland’s experience shows thorough police reform can indeed change even in a divided society, building trust in the police in communities that once justifiably saw the police as a hostile occupying force more interested in controlling than protecting them.
Kimberly Cowell-Meyers is an assistant professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University (twitter@kbcowell). Carolyn Gallaher (@C_OGallachoir) is a professor and senior associate dean in the School of International Service at American University. She is the author of “After the Peace: Loyalist Paramilitaries in Post-Accord Northern Ireland” (Cornell University Press, 2007).