A Blueprint for Democratic Policing Anywhere in the World?

• Author: Graham Ellison
• DOI: 10.1177/1098611107304735
• Published date: 01 September 2007
• Date: 01 September 2007
• Subject Matter: Articles

243

Author’s Note:Address correspondence to Graham Ellison, Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice,

School of Law, Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT7 1NN; e-mail: g.ellison@qub.ac.uk.

Police Quarterly

Volume 10 Number 3

September 2007 243-269

© 2007 Sage Publications

10.1177/1098611107304735

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A Blueprint for Democratic

Policing Anywhere in the World?

Police Reform, Political Transition, and

Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland

Graham Ellison

Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland

This article provides an overview of the police reform process undertaken in Northern

Ireland since 1999 as part of a broader program of conflict resolution. It considers the

recommendations of the Independent Commission on Policing (ICP), which proposed a

number of changes to policing structures and arrangements in Northern Ireland, and it

assesses the degree to which these have been operationalized in the 8 years since the ICP

published its report. It suggests that although the police reform process in Northern

Ireland has been moderately successful and provides a number of international best practice

lessons, the overall pace of change has been hindered by difficulties of implementation

and, more fundamentally, by developments in the political sphere and civil society.

Keywords: police reform; Northern Ireland; democratization; Royal Ulster Constabulary

There is now a voluminous literature and general agreement that reform of the

structures of public policing in particular and a democratization of the institu-

tions of governance in general are key components of peace-building efforts in

postauthoritarian and transitional societies (Bayley 2001, 2006; Caparini & Marenin

2004; Stenning & Shearing, 2005). Furthermore, there is a general acceptance by

academics, international development agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and

“transnational policing regimes” (Marenin, 2005, p. 107) that reforms must establish

structures of public policing that are not only “culturally appropriate but also demo-

cratic and respectful of fundamental human rights” (Stenning & Shearing, 2005,

p. 169). This refocusing has resulted in an international harmonization of standards

in relation to the nature and form that democratic policing should take, and as Bayley

(2001) acknowledges, “the elements of democratic police reform are no longer prob-

lematic” (p. 76). A willingness to conform to the principles of democratic policing

in postauthoritarian and transitional states is important as an end in itself—to pre-

vent human rights abuses, provide a minimal level of citizen security, and so forth—

but also because fair and effective policing contributes to the very foundations of

political order upon which democratic freedoms so often depend (Marenin, 2005). Of

course, outlining the contours of what democratic policing is supposed to look like is

one thing; translating these into practice on the ground is another matter entirely,

given that there very often exists a disjuncture between what the reform process is

supposed to achieve in general terms and what is actually achieved in regard to imple-

mentation (Bayley, 2006). In fact, as several commentators have noted, many inter-

national police reform efforts are characterized as much by failure as success

(Chesterman, 2004; Ziegler & Neild, 2002), and there is no foolproof template upon

which the outcome of democratic policing can be simply transcribed or guaranteed.

The following discussion considers one such police reform effort—namely, that

undertaken in Northern Ireland following the establishment of a constitutional set-

tlement for the governance of Northern Ireland in 1998 (the Good Friday/Belfast

Agreement).1As a key component, the Independent Commission on Policing (ICP;

1999) was established to “bring forward proposals for future policing structures and

arrangements” in Northern Ireland (p. 123).2Key here was the recognition that polic-

ing and justice issues were central to the dynamics of conflict, being both part of the

problem and part of the solution. Police reform therefore had an important contribu-

tion to make to a broader conflict resolution process within Northern Ireland.

Arguably, however, it is of relevance outside the specifics of local context, and in

comparative international terms, Northern Ireland is seen as one of the few instances

where police reform has had a broadly sustainable impact (Bayley, 2005).

Furthermore, the report of the ICP is acknowledged as providing a useful template

for the establishment of democratic policing internationally (Kempa & Shearing,

2005), and it is also of interest theoretically in terms of current debates about nodal

security governance (Shearing 2000, 2001).

In the 8 years since the ICP published its recommendations, there has emerged a

sizable body of independent research evidence to allow us to consider what has

worked, what has not, what might have been done differently, and what remains to

be done. In the following discussion, I accept the view that the report of the ICP pro-

vided the “best hope” solution to resolving the problems of policing in Northern

Ireland, and although the document is not perfect—it has nothing to say about the

gender imbalance in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), nor did it provide any

mechanism for “truth recovery” in relation to those officers who may have been

guilty of committing human rights abuses—it provides a sound foundation upon

which to construct the principles of democratic policing in the region. However,it is

equally clear to any seasoned observer of policing in Northern Ireland that the

program of police reform thus far can only be described as torturous. Although much

has been achieved in recent years, full cross-community participation in the new

policing structures has proved to be somewhat elusive. In fact, Sinn Féin—currently,

Northern Ireland’s largest nationalist political party—only lent its support to the

Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in January 2007, and even then this was

heavily qualified in relation to its “civil” policing role. Although the power-sharing

244 Police Quarterly