Policing is always a tricky affair, especially when dealing with those communities that have traditionally seen the police as their enemy. Why would they do that? Because they see the police as maintaining the status quo and the status quo leaves them near if not at the bottom of the heap. That’s why the PSNI have to work twice as hard to convince more deprived areas or areas where people have traditionally been suspicious of the police.
I have little doubt that the police and the gardaí are doing all in their power to clamp down on the fuel-smuggling that goes on in border regions. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I don’t like the idea of money being taken from my pocket, which is essentially what fuel-smuggling involves, we’re told. On the other hand I remember so many instances of smuggling in the past, from a pot of jam in my Auntie Peg’s drawers to the night-time shifting of cattle from one side of the border to the other. While I wish the PSNI well in their task of catching fuel-launderers, it’s maybe inevitable that borders, especially unwanted borders, will be used to their advantage by those living locally. Come to think of it, don’t Bono and big companies like Apple use borders to save/make a lot more money for themselves, on a scale our local smugglers can only dream of?
But there is one area where the police here could act and by doing so would enhance their standing in the community. By all accounts in North Belfast there is a group of criminals, mostly foreign, who are openly carrying fire-arms and have established at least one brothel in the area. The people living there have appealed to the PSNI to act but their pleas have fallen on plugged earholes. That sort of approach isn’t going to help the PSNI develop co-operative roots within the community. Maybe they figure that by ignoring these criminals, they are somehow playing a subtle softly-softly game? I think if they check with local people they’ll get one response: get the gloves off, lads. We want our community back.
Over to you, officers.
Today is the 47th anniversary by date of the day in Derry that exposed the rotten underbelly of policing inthe northern state.
47yrs eh,doors still being kicked in this morning in ardoyne whats changed.
Well done, you have hit the nail on the head. If you go back to some of the earliest reports on ‘civil disturbances’, one word remains constant, deprivation. Fast forward to the present day and evidence of health and social inequality remains an unacceptable fact of life.
The PSNI in Derry have described a bomb which exploded over the weekend as a sectarian hate crime. Not so according to the local DUP man. We have to be careful with our words, says he. It seems that guns and bombs are only problematic in certain parts of the north of Ireland. Another clash of assessments appears to be the order of the day. It would appear that evidence has become a redundant concept in the lexicon of local politicians.
While the participants at the rehearsals for the Christmas pantomime in Stormont prevaricate, there are some strutting the streets demonstrating that crime pays.
Some cynics might say that elements of special branch are quite happy to let anti-social criminal gangs operate with impunity!
It has the following effects:-
Make local representatives look ineffective (potentially damaging SF)
May eventually encourage an armed response from ex-combatants or dissidents (potentially damaging SF)
Mind you I can’t think of any reason why any Anti-GFA elements in the special branch could possibly want that!
The PSNI was doomed to fail once it rehired ‘retired ‘ RUC including Special Branch men. That one act ended any credibility they may have started to build in the republican/nationalist eyes.
fast forward to the present. An endless parade of ‘detained’ republicans brought in for questioning about various crimes past or present followed by the release without charge of the same. Meanwhile we see a sign held by masked men calling for the crucifixion of all ‘taigs;. Next we hear of a loyalist paramilitary who is nailed to a board through his hands. The PSNI has not shown themselves to be an even handed force IMO.
If they did that Jude, they would be arresting all of their key intelligence sources and wouldn’t be able to link criminality to the IRA any more.
Then again, if the criminals admit they aren’t actually in the IRA or aren’t anymore if need be, then they would lose all the protection their handlers provide.
Could be more tricky than it would at first appear.
I always wondered how the man on the street new just where to show up to get the car filled up but the police were none the wiser. What with all the cross border cooperation and all.
A few months ago there was a massive story in Britain, I think it occurred in Rotherham, where a gang of paedophiles/rapists were allowed to groom/rape White, vulnerable English girls while the police stood by and didn’t act for years. The police did this because they feared they would be labelled “racist” if they tackled this gang because the gang consisted of Pakistani men. So they allowed the rape of children for years because of political correctness.
I hope the PSNI don’t have the same mind set when it comes to the foreign criminals in North Belfast or anywhere else in the 6 counties and the same goes for the Garda in the rest of Ireland.
The PSNI wont gain much support from the Catholic/Nationalist community if they keep rehiring supposedly “retired” RUC officers. Martin McGuinness just recently said that elements in the PSNI, I’m assuming he’s referring to the RUC elements, would never accept Sinn Fein in Stormont and in Power sharing. Were these RUC elements responsible for the arrests of Bobby Storey and other republicans just when Unionism was looking any excuse to leave the executive? Peter Robinson knew about the arrests before they even happened, who told him? Bobby Storey and the other 2 republicans were released without charge and not a shred of evidence put against them.
The PSNI needs fumigated and cleansed of RUC elements as it’s meant to be. 50/50 recruitment should be reintroduced so that the PSNI is 50/50 Catholic and Protestant. Maybe then the PSNI can be a police service for everyone and not another tool for political Unionism, which was the RUC’s job.
meanwhile up at stormont their welcoming more foreigners in so many a month.
are they going to be finger printed,dna taken,p.checked from country of origin.
there will be crime gangs among these numbers,they need policed at source.