The journey of policing and the community in Northern Ireland is not yet complete, the shortly to retire Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable George Hamilton said in a lecture to Queen’s University Belfast. Having started in policing in 1985, he is in his final two months of office.
He set out disappointment at ‘the ongoing political vacuum’ due to the collapse of the Stormont institutions, for example meaning for two years there was no Northern Ireland Policing Board, that Hamilton described as ‘incredible: “That an institution so critical to policing could be so vulnerable to political turmoil is one aspect of our journey that needs examined afresh.”
On ‘legacy’ such as the independent Historical Investigations Unit, he reported little progress. On PSNI recruitment, he reported a worry that forecasting shows that if recruitment continues as it is, overall Catholic representation in the service will decrease. He spoke of improving representativeness, including options like direct entry, apprenticeships and secondments. “But the fact remains – the Police Service cannot do this in isolation – the bigger and more sustainable requirement is political and societal change.”
He covered current crimes, such as a spate of thefts of and from ATMs, the murder of journalist Lyra McKee in Derry and the tragedy at the Greenvale Hotel, and organised crime. Northern Ireland has seen 150 security related deaths in the 21 years since the peace agreement: “Despite all the progress we have made, paramilitaries still seek to exert coercive control on our communities.”
He concluded that it ‘will be the failure of our generation if we do not reinvigorate our efforts and invite the next generation to continue the transformation’.
For the speech in full visit the PSNI website.
Picture by Mark Rowe; Belfast docks.
