Policing in Northern Ireland is at a crossroads and it’s not wholly about chronic underfunding.
The current chief constable, Jon Boutcher, is the most consequential head of the PSNI since Sir Hugh Orde oversaw the transformation of the police service and implementation of the Patten reforms.
But Boutcher can only do so much.
Today, the PSNI is under-resourced, under-funded and well below personnel power.
In many ways, it’s a police service under siege and captured by domestic politics.
Sadly, the PSNI is also no longer representative of the society it seeks to serve.
It can be spun that it needs more representatives from minority and new communities in the north, or that it needs a more diverse ethnic or gender base, but the inescapable truth is that it’s not cutting through to the wider nationalist community.
The RUC, despite some good, honourable, brave and well-intentioned individual officers, was badly led by political lackeys in hoc to the leaders of unionism, the Orange Order and the deep state.
Unlike the Garda, there was little to no ‘buy-in’ or love towards it from northern Catholics.
And there was just cause to be fearful, resentful and opposed to what morphed into what many nationalists regarded as a wholly partisan and semi-paramilitary organisation.
Corporately speaking, the RUC allowed itself to be corrupted by the poisonous and discriminatory practices of political unionism.
The RUC was never acceptable to most nationalists. It was perceived as being more protagonist than peace-keeper.
As said in this column before, it’s not the place of the state or policing to degenerate into the sewer-swimming and unlawful tactics of paramilitary organisations. But sewer-swimming is exactly what many did.
Not for the first time did the late Seamus Mallon put his finger on the core issue: that it’s not simply about getting more Catholics into the police service.
He said: “It’s much broader, deeper and more fundamental than that. It’s about nationalist identification with the process of policing and allegiance.”
The PSNI has failed to win over nationalist hearts and minds.
This is disappointing to this writer, who came forward to join the first new Policing Board – a board which has long since lost its purpose, its authority and relevance.
Mallon added, with considerable foresight, that nationalist identification was not just about policing but also “the administration which is partly responsible for the administration of policing”.
And that dear readers, is the Department of Justice.
It’s beyond ridiculous (and insulting) that 26 years after the creation of devolution and 15 years since the devolution of justice, the post of Minister for Justice has been held by three non-Catholics, never mind them being non-nationalists.
Whilst no reflection on the ability of any of these post-holders to do the job, it’s a glaring example of political farce and failure.
Back in 2010, the SDLP proposed a qualified barrister, Alban Maginness, as Justice Minister. He was hardly a political maverick. He lost out.
Two Alliance and one independent unionist were deemed acceptable. This is both inexcusable and inexplicable, and should be especially so for Sinn Féin. Why is this be acceptable?
If the oversight of justice cannot be trusted to a nationalist, is it any wonder young nationalists are not rushing to join the police service which upholds the process of law, order and justice? Perception is everything in the north.
Imagine an employer advertising a post which said no nationalist may apply. (Or for that matter a unionist).
Northern Ireland is either a society of equals or it’s not. Until the political leadership at Stormont ends this discrimination, the perception of nationalist inequality will remain.
The PSNI hasn’t fully tackled the underlying anti-nationalist kitchen culture within the organisation.
The Catholic Police Guild is well intentioned but the issue is about cultural identification, not religion.
There’s only one solution – restore 50/50 recruitment immediately... before it’s too late.