Police Reform: Looking to Northern Ireland as an Example for the United States

One month into 2021, there have been 71 fatal police shootings in the United States.[1] While this number is down from the 88 reported in January 2020,[2] the number dwarfs comparable data from across the globe.[3] In light of continued calls for systematic police reform, staggering statistics, and renewed public interest, what lessons can the United States learn from international examples of police reform? Globally, there a few nations that have faced comparable issues of police violence to those in the United States. With over 18,000 distinct police forces, racially disproportionate use of force, and limited oversight, policing in the United States is viewed by many as un-reformable in its current state.[4] Similar criticism, however, was once levied in Northern Ireland.

Prior to reform in 1998, policing in Northern Ireland had irretrievably broken down due to longstanding ethno-political divisions, widespread distrust of police, and rampant violence.[5] Compared to its southern neighbor, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland was majority Protestant and remained part of the United Kingdom following partition in 1920.[6] While Protestants generally favored remaining part of the UK, identifying as Unionists, a Protestant majority coupled with educational segregation, job discrimination, and Protestant-controlled government led the Catholic minority to identify as “Nationalist” and favor unification with the independent, and majority Catholic, Republic of Ireland.[7] 

In light of these divisions, distrust of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (“RUC”) - the police force - among Nationalist communities was rampant, as it was seen as not an impartial arm of public service, but identified with the colonial oppressor the British state.[8] Compounding this was the significant underrepresentation of Catholics in the RUC and extensive allegations that police officers colluded with Unionist paramilitaries and the British Army.[9] While the RUC faced allegations of disproportionate use of violence against Catholics throughout the entirety of its tenure, violence culminated during the Troubles, a period of 30 years of conflict between Nationalist forces, including the IRA, who believed joining a united Ireland was the only way to achieve real equality, and Unionist forces, including the RUC, British military, and paramilitary groups.[10]

Faced with such issues, in 1998 leaders from both camps and the governments of the UK and the Republic of Ireland signed the Good Friday Agreement. They recommended the replacement of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) with a new Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and several layers of accountability and oversight in an effort to bring about an end to sectarian violence.[11] As part of this, the force was renamed, the badge altered, and the Union flag removed from police stations, signaling that the PSNI was non-partisan.[12] The replacement of the RUC, rather than reformation, served to acknowledge the gravity of the problem.[13] Further, the establishment of the PSNI called for an affirmative action program to increase representation of Catholics within the police force in an effort to address widespread distrust among Nationalist communities previously policed by Unionists members of the RUC.[14]

The Good Friday Agreement also established the Policing Board, an independent group drawn from local parties tasked with reviewing the PSNI budget and objectives, and the Ombudsman’s Office in an effort instill a high level of public confidence in the new police force.[15] The Policing Board mandates codes of practice and ethics, makes yearly recommendations on areas of improvement, and oversees the Police and Community Safety Partnerships in each of Northern Ireland’s districts formed to monitor police activity and encourage community partnerships.[16] Such reforms serve to hold the force accountable to the communities they police. The creation of the office of the Police Ombudsman added another layer of oversight, as it established an independent body charged with investigating complaints brought against the police.[17] Prior to the Ombudsman’s inception, complaints against officers were conducted by the police themselves, a major critique of existing policies in U.S. policing.[18]

While the problem faced by Northern Ireland is not a direct analog to that presented in the United States, there are notable parallels that may suggest a way forward for United States’ police reform. As in Northern Ireland, in the United States today police violence disproportionately affects a historically discriminated against minority group, people of color.[19] Further, a representation gap exists between police officers and the communities they police, albeit along racial and not religious lines.[20] While white officers account for 60% of the population, they account for 72% of sworn local police officers in the United States.[21] While the disparity is not nearly as large as those in the RUC,[22] current U.S. nationwide averages mask much bigger gaps in big cities, which are both less white and are more heavily policed.[23] Furthermore, according to Gallup, confidence in law enforcement in the United States today is at an all-time low, as was the case at the height of the Troubles.[24] As fatalities from police shootings in the United States climb and approach those reported during the Troubles,[25] perhaps the success in Northern Ireland can serve as a path to reform in the United States.

Grace Carney is a staff member of Fordham International Law Journal Volume XLIV.

This is a student blog post and in no way represents the views of the Fordham International Law Journal.

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[1]See Fatal Force: 976 People Have Been Shot and Killed by Police in the Past Year, Wash. Post (Feb. 4, 2021),  https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ [hereinafter Fatal Force] (database updated daily to reflect the real-time statistics on fatal police shootings in the US).

[2] See id.

[3] See Alexi Jones & Wendy Sawyer, Not just “a few bad apples”: U.S. police kill civilians at much higher rates than other countries, Prison Policy Initiative (June 5, 2020), https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/.

[4] See Kimberly Cowell-Meyers & Carolyn Gallagher, Police reforms helped bring peace to Northern Ireland, Wash. Post (June 18, 2020), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/18/police-reforms-helped-bring-peace-northern-ireland/.

[5] See generally Agreement Reached in the Multi-Party Negotiations, Dublin, Belfast, London, 1998 [hereinafter Good Friday Agreement].

[6] See Cowell-Meyers & Gallagher, supra note 4.

[7] See Joseph M. Brown & Gordon C. McCord, Northern Ireland’s Troubles began 50 years ago. Here’s why they were so violent., Wash. Post (Aug. 22, 2019), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/22/why-were-troubles-so-bloody-this-helps-explain/.

[8] See Cowell-Meyers & Gallagher, supra note 4.

[9] See id (noting that at the height of the conflict Catholics made up approximately 5% of the total police force).

[10] See id. (noting that Seamus Mallon, a Nationalist politician, once joked that the RUC was “97 percent Protestant, 100 percent Unionist.”)

[11] See Good Friday Agreement, supra note 4, at 26 (Policing and Justice).

[12] See Brice Dickson, Criminal Law in Northern Ireland (EXTRACTS), in Law in Northern Ireland ¶ 7.44 (2nd ed., Hart Publishing, 2013).

[13] See id.

[14] See id. at ¶ 7.45

[15] See id. at ¶ 7.56.

[16] See id. at ¶ 7.57.

[17] See id. at ¶ 7.61.

[18] See id. at ¶ 7.56, 7.60.

[19] See Fatal Force, supra note 1.  

[20] See Lauren Leatherby & Richard A. Oppel Jr., Which Police Departments Are as Diverse as Their Communities?, N.Y. Times (Sept. 23, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/23/us/bureau-justice-statistics-race.html.

[21] See id.

[22] See Cowell-Meyers & Gallagher, supra note 5.

[23] See Andra Shalal & Jonathan Landay, Black cops say discrimination, nepotism behind U.S. police race gap, Reuters (July 2, 2020),  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-blackofficers/black-cops-say-discrimination-nepotism-behind-u-s-police-race-gap-idUSKBN2432T8.

[24] See Aimee Ortiz, Confidence in Police Is at Record Low, Gallup Survey Finds, N.Y. Times (Aug. 12, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/us/gallup-poll-police.html. See also Megan Brenan, ”Amid Pandemic, Confidence in Key U.S. Institutions Surges,” Gallup (Aug. 12, 2020), https://news.gallup.com/poll/317135/amid-pandemic-confidence-key-institutions-surges.aspx (“Record-low confidence in police, 5-point decline since last year.”).

[25] The overall death toll from the 30 years of the Troubles was 2,636. In 2020 alone there were 1004 fatalities from police shootings in the United States. See Fatal Force, supra note 1 see also Barry Roche,  Academic says republicans responsible for 60% of Troubles deaths, Irish Times (Aug. 11, 2019), https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/academic-says-republicans-responsible-for-60-of-troubles-deaths-1.3983227.