Policing History: The Official Discourse and Organizational Memory of the Royal Ulster Constabulary
by Aogan Mulcahy
From: British Journal of Criminology (2000) 40, 68-87. (Published by Oxford University Press)
Past and present in the police reform debate
As part of the ongoing peace process in Northern Ireland, the issue of police reform shifted to the forefront of the political agenda. Given the contentiousness of policing throughout the conflict, the official reform agenda was striking for its forward-looking character. The official proposals to increase police effectiveness and enhance police-community relationships were characterised by a singular ahistoricity, and generated as if from a social and political vacuum. But while the RUC remains deeply critical of reform proponents whose views are informed by past scandals and controversies, constructions of the past constitute a major legitimation resource for the RUC. Organisational memories of sacrifice, community support and accountability form the basis of what, for the RUC is a deeply satisfying account of its history. These core staples of official discourse throughout the conflict have been deployed both to maintain the support of its champions and to reaffirm the force's own collective identity. During the peace process, they were also deployed to shape the new policing order that would emerge from the peace process, in an effort to thwart proposals for radical change and to ensure that an 'evolutionary' perspective of police reform prevailed (Mulcahy 1999)8. In profound ways, these memories would have starkly material consequences. In terms of the ongoing police reform debate, they were the discursive underpinnings for the RUC's rejection of demands for large-scale reform, and its denigration of reform proponents.
First, the RUC's official discourse offers a highly favourable reading of the force's history, articulating and reinforcing the view, that policing in Northern Ireland is essentially unproblematic. As the Chief Constable stated: 'Whilst willing to adapt, alter or add to what we have, we must never fall for that superficial rhetoric that the RUC is broken and must be fixed or discarded. That is nonsense.' (Police Beat, April 1995: 17) Among RUC officers there appeared to be a remarkable consensus of opinion that all the force required for 'performance maximisation' were those changes that would flow naturally from the absence of a paramilitary threat, such as the scaling down of the security measures that hitherto had characterised policing, 9. Within the RUC generally there was considerable animosity and resistance to the reform debate. The chairperson of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland described it as 'the subject which causes my members more grief and anger than perhaps any other I can remember' (Speech to the 1997 PFNI Annual Conference). An editorial in Police Beat (the PFNI) journal) even contained the remarkable statement that: 'The test of nerve for the RUC may not have been what we have been through but what we may yet face' (January 1995: 1) Officers' claims that the reform debate was embarked upon with 'indecent haste' (Interview with RUC Superintendent) reflected the view that it was a slur on the memory of the officers killed and injured during the conflict. 10 Therefore, to suggest that aspects of policing were problematic was immediately to implicate oneself in a propaganda campaign whose purpose was the degradation and eventual elimination of the RUC. The description of reforms as 'concessions' rather than democratic rights - was a significant feature of this. It suggests that reforms are the result of vocal rather than justified criticism. This allows no means of distinguishing between the two, and no means of advancing reforms that does not amount of capitulation or failure.
A second consequence of official discourse is the momentum it generates
to characterise reform proponents as 'politically motivated' 11. Ironically,
one of the ways in which the RUC sought to de-legitimise its critics was
by alleging they were 'locked in the past'. Critics were described as 'propagandists,
carpists and manufacturers of pseudo-history ' (Police Beat, quoted in Ellison
1997: 223) who exhibited 'an insatiable appetite for police humiliation'
(Police Beat, June 1993:3) This theme was very evident in the recent reform
debate when the Deputy Chief Constable accused reform proponents of being
'politically motivated unrepresentative, dubious barometers of public opinion
and.........the sort of people who spoke loudest at meetings' (Irish News
2 January 1995:8) The PFNI chairperson reiterated this view, referring to
reform proponents as 'drop-outs, young people going through a rebellious
phase, criminals and terrorists' (Irish News 19 November 1997:1) |
