How are southernern members of the PSNI perceived?

murphaph

Victor wrote:

I think its largely down to the Irish language rules. Anyone could be a member, but few have the language. There is talk of changing this, specifily where they need people with foreign language fluency / cultural proficiency.

Cheers. I think it's high time we saw some black/asian Gardai. Leaving it until the minority members are all born here is leaving it too late. Black and asian kids growing up here need to see a representative police force in their formative years and not grow up with chips on their shoulders about being excluded from state institutions. We do not want to repeat some of Britain's mistakes.

FTA69

murphaph wrote:

The less said about that republican (IRA styled) parade in Ballymena, the better

You mean the one opposed by Sinn Féin at which the marchers were clearly IRSM members? At least make the effort to keep up with the facts will you?

gurramok

mycroft wrote:

Two questions. Why? Not? They're catholic. Are they less catholic because the bishop of Armagh didn't confirm 'em?

NI Quality Of Life
Note the following extract:
"The crime rate is one of the lowest in the developed world and less than half the United Kingdom average.
Figures show that in 2002/03, the victim of crime rate in England and Wales was 34% higher than in Northern Ireland.'
Northern Ireland is a safe place to live and has the lowest crime victimisation rate in the world, according to the 2000 International Crime Victimisation Survey (ICVS)."
That should answer your question about the easiness of the PSNI job.

Regarding any riot you mention, every police force has a riot squad for that, the PSNI have even army backup which is quite rare in civil situations in EU.
That violence is alot different as they are mostly once off events a year(july 12th).
Gardai in ROI are unarmed and have to put up with injuries in greater degree as they are less protected and are patrolling a equally if not more dangerous sector of society. (Many have been injured and died in course of their duty in last 5 years)

murphaph wrote:

Nice attempt at diversion but you're still wrong.

No, the police force should be representative of the community in NI not by outsiders.
By your saying of the special relationship, its hardly representative of the community that actually live there if the PSNI is full of officers from either ROI or Britain itself is it?

mycroft

gurramok wrote:

NI Quality Of Life
Note the following extract:
"The crime rate is one of the lowest in the developed world and less than half the United Kingdom average.
Figures show that in 2002/03, the victim of crime rate in England and Wales was 34% higher than in Northern Ireland.'
Northern Ireland is a safe place to live and has the lowest crime victimisation rate in the world, according to the 2000 International Crime Victimisation Survey (ICVS)."
That should answer your question about the easiness of the PSNI job.

Which would be funny if were talking about the ease of the job in comparision to mainland UK and Scotland.

But you're not, you're talking about the difference between NI and Ireland and the relevant statistics between the two

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr Michael McDowell, TD, today published the provisional crime statistics for 2004 furnished by the Garda Commissioner. The statistics show a decrease for the second year in a row - a decrease of 4% for the year compared with 2003, following a decrease of 3% in 2003 compared with 2002. The Minister also published the statistics for the fourth quarter of 2004 which also show a decrease of 3% compared to the corresponding quarter in 2003.

The Minister noted that the statistics confirm the trend of falling violent crime recorded in the first nine months of 2004. Welcoming the fall the Minister said "I have always advocated caution in dealing with provisional figures but these are further indications of a downward trend in serious crime statistics. These figures show that the crime rate in Ireland has fallen from a rate of 28.4 crimes per 100,000 of the population in 1995 to 24.4 per 100,000 in 2004. Bearing in mind that our population has increased by 400,000 in the same period, a decrease in crime rates is a remarkable achievement by An Garda Siochana. Hype and political opportunism cannot be allowed to distort the picture - Ireland has a low crime rate compared to other western societies and it is important to maintain a sense of balance when commenting on crime statistics."

The year-on-year statistics now being made available show that significant decreases were recorded in some of the most serious offence categories

* Murder and manslaughter combined down 13%;
* Sexual assault down 28%;
* Aggravated burglary down 14%;
* Theft from the person down 14%;
* Robbery from the person down 14%.

The Minister noted that the number of violent deaths (murder and manslaughter) recorded in 2004 is down on the number for 2003 by a total of seven, from 52 to 45. The number of violent deaths has therefore declined from 59 in 2002 to 52 in 2003 to 45 in 2004. Parallel with this, the annual number of murders has also been in decline for these three years - reducing from 52 in 2002 to 45 in 2003 to 36 in 2004.

http://www.justice.ie/80256E01003A02CF/vWeb/pcJUSQ68YDS9-en

The suggestion that day to day policing in the North is significantly easier than day to day policing in the south just isn't true.

Regarding any riot you mention, every police force has a riot squad for that, the PSNI have even army backup which is quite rare in civil situations in EU.
That violence is alot different as they are mostly once off events a year(july 12th).

And again. The size of the force and the scale of the trouble means every officer is likely to be needed for riot duty. You're suggesting that these officers can avoid this dangerous duty, while at the same time in an earlier post suggesting that these officers coming from down south are thrill seekers.

If it's a lack of action that deters them to join the gards, let them see their quality in action against the scumbags/gurriers/skangers.

As mentioned hundreds of police (not army police) have been injuried during the marching season. Furthermore the BA is scaling back it's presence in NI (as you may have heard), so policing of riots is going to depend more on the police.

Gardai in ROI are unarmed and have to put up with injuries in greater degree as they are less protected and are patrolling a equally if not more dangerous sector of society. (Many have been injured and died in course of their duty in last 5 years)

Aside from Mc Cabe the only officers killed in the line of duty in RoI have been in traffice accidents in recent memory. Tragic accidents that could have happened anywhere.

No, the police force should be representative of the community in NI not by outsiders.

I think you'll find it's standard practice on both sides of the borders to not have police patrol the exact community they come from. Usually they'll be transfered to a different part of the island. You've still not explained how southern catholics arent good enough for you.

murphaph

FTA69 wrote:

You mean the one opposed by Sinn Féin at which the marchers were clearly IRSM members? At least make the effort to keep up with the facts will you?

What? It was a bigoted parade in an area it wasn't wanted. Are republican parades only republican if SF gives the ok? Your original post was clearly talking about Orange marches, but you were caught out because they aren't the only contentious parades the PSNI escorts through (just doing their jobs as per the Parades Commision recommendations).

murphaph

gurramok wrote:

No, the police force should be representative of the community in NI not by outsiders.
By your saying of the special relationship, its hardly representative of the community that actually live there if the PSNI is full of officers from either ROI or Britain itself is it?

Ok, so how about a Catholic candidate for PSNI membership who's from say, Lifford, Co. Donegal. Literally a stone's throw from Strabane Co. (London)Derry. Is (s)he excluded from your ideal catholic PSNI member?

MrPudding

gurramok wrote:

These events are once-off and controlled by riot police with army backup not the ordinary constable.
General crime which I once heard on BBC News NI is much lower on average in NI than anywhere in either the UK or the ROI.

All police officers in NI are riot trained. You also have the MSU, mobile support units. They are riot specialists, stopping them that is. The force that would be on duty at an "event" like Drumcree would be a mixture of normal officers and MSU, the majority being normal officers.

Quick question for FTA. I am still trying to get ot the bottom of the question of why some Catholics in NI get hassle and others, like myself and all of my friends, get none. My question is, when you are explaining to them (the PSNI) that you know your rights and giving them only the information required of you, do you call them pigs?

MrP

Flex

Personally i dont see anything wrong with southerners joining the PSNI. I think we should use this 50/50 recruitment policy, because of the simple reason 50% of the places are reserved for Catholics, and i think its foolish for northeners to hold back from such a great oppertunity as that. I know alot of people dont like or trust the PSNI, but we can bring about change from within it and it would be such a huge helping factor when the time comes for a united Ireland; that 50% of the police force could be relied on to cooperate and continue to work as the new Garda of the north east. People would have liked if there was more change or improvements or more things fully implemented or whatever, but this is the best there is for now so we should take advantage of it, rather than waiting and waiting, in the hope of things getting better.

murphaph
"Ok, so how about a Catholic candidate for PSNI membership who's from say, Lifford, Co. Donegal. Literally a stone's throw from Strabane Co. (London)Derry. Is (s)he excluded from your ideal catholic PSNI member?"

Well, in the interest of parity of esteem between Loyalists/Unionists and Republicans/Nationalists, ill post (Free)Derry.

gurramok

mycroft wrote:

http://www.justice.ie/80256E01003A02CF/vWeb/pcJUSQ68YDS9-en

The suggestion that day to day policing in the North is significantly easier than day to day policing in the south just isn't true.

Nice article on statistics with the missing Headline excuse the pun- 'Minister Announces Headline Crime Figures'

That article you quote relates to headline offences only and does not include non-headline offences.

Total official offences for 2003 which is available from Garda site Garda
shows roughly 395,000 offences in total of headline(103,000) and non-headline(292,000) offences.

For the PSNI who have up-to date stats on their site from PSNI , it clearly shows that the number of offences in 2003 was 127,000 and lower the year later.

To compare both ROI and NI,
ROI= pop4m, crime rate per 1000 people is in fact 98.75
NI = pop1.7m, crime rate per 1000 people is in fact 74.7

In both jurisdictions, crime has fallen by a similar percentage in 2004 so the stats are relatively the same in rates.
It can clearly be seen which police force has the 'easier' job.

mycroft wrote:

You've still not explained how southern catholics arent good enough for you.

I have, I have said that they are NOT representative of the community that lives in NI.
Would you rather to have a PSNI full of southerners and the locals squeezed out over the next 10yrs or so, what would be your tolerance level for this?

catholicireland

Patriotism; a blind belief in the virtues of ones country; is (a) silly and (b) frequently harmful

Really? Where did you pull that one out of, rsynnotts dictionary? Who said patriotism is a belief that is blind?

rsynnott

catholicireland wrote:

Really? Where did you pull that one out of, rsynnotts dictionary? Who said patriotism is a belief that is blind?

How would you define patriotism, then?

murphaph

gurramok wrote:

No, the police force should be representative of the community in NI not by outsiders.
By your saying of the special relationship, its hardly representative of the community that actually live there if the PSNI is full of officers from either ROI or Britain itself is it?

Ok, so how about a Catholic candidate for PSNI membership who's from say, Lifford, Co. Donegal. Literally a stone's throw from Strabane Co. (London)Derry. Is (s)he excluded from your ideal catholic PSNI member?

@Flex: You can call it (Free)Derry if you like but that title is usually reserved by nationalists & republicans for the city as opposed to the county, which is what we're talking about here. In any case, I thought I'd addressed the parity of esteem by writing (London)Derry, with both parts of the name given a capital letter. Surely this is acceptable to unionists and nationalists alike?

mycroft

gurramok wrote:

To compare both ROI and NI,
ROI= pop4m, crime rate per 1000 people is in fact 98.75
NI = pop1.7m, crime rate per 1000 people is in fact 74.7

In both jurisdictions, crime has fallen by a similar percentage in 2004 so the stats are relatively the same in rates.
It can clearly be seen which police force has the 'easier' job.

No it's not.

Your statistics talk about crime in general, it doesn't go into specifics about the type of crime, ie petty vandalism, small time drug dealing shop lifting verus, gang warfare, punishment beatings, rioting. The statistics are a gross over simplification.

Your statistics also only reflect "reported" crime. And ignores the realities of "community policing units" whom locals in certain areas will only go to, and will not report the crimes to the PSNI. Several parts of Derry and Belfast are simply no go areas for the PSNI.

Your statistics are a poor reflection of the realities of the situation, and the different policing duties in different parts of NI.

I have, I have said that they are NOT representative of the community that lives in NI.
Would you rather to have a PSNI full of southerners and the locals squeezed out over the next 10yrs or so, what would be your tolerance level for this?

Listen to yourself, you're now mouthing about bloody southerns coming over here and taking our jobs.

You've no evidence that the above is going to take place it's pure fantasy and speculation without a shred of evidence.

catholicireland

How would you define patriotism, then?

A feeling of pride in and respect for one's country.

vasch_ro

murphaph wrote:

. One look at the number of pillion passengers being illegaly carried by provisional bike licence holders shows the general attitude to Gardai towards traffic offences. Nobody fears being stopped because the Guards never stop people for this and many other things.

acutally I have stopped a number of people for this

vasch_ro

murphaph wrote:

Cheers. I think it's high time we saw some black/asian Gardai.

we do have some by the way ..............

catholicireland

Cheers. I think it's high time we saw some black/asian Gardai.

Why is it "high time"?

murphaph

vasch_ro wrote:

acutally I have stopped a number of people for this

You're in the minority vasch_ro. Fair play to you if you have though, I'm sick of road traffic laws being broken with the resultant 'accidents' causing death/injury and of course ridiculous insurance premia.

I'm new to biking. I'm on the provisional and I'll stay off motorways and won't be carrying pillions until I pass the bike test, but I dare say I'm in the minority of provisioal A licence holders. Breaking of provisional licencing laws is so serious in the UK you will likely face disqualification if caught, here it's completely different with blind eyes turned constantly.

The insurance companies (Hibernian & Axa) have been highly critical of the policing of provisional licence holders on bikes, with something lke 70% of claims made by illegally carried pillions!

As for the black & asian Gardai, I don't doubt that there are one or two, but that's not enough.

murphaph

catholicireland wrote:

Why is it "high time"?

Because the population demographics have changd in the past 10 years with much inward migration. We have plenty of african doctors, plenty of asian nurses, so why not Gardai?

gurramok

murphaph wrote:

Ok, so how about a Catholic candidate for PSNI membership who's from say, Lifford, Co. Donegal. Literally a stone's throw from Strabane Co. (London)Derry. Is (s)he excluded from your ideal catholic PSNI member?

Yes, that said prospectful candidate is not a resident of NI. Borders are there for a reason, NI is a different jurisdiction.
Recruits should come from the NI community as a representative of that community.
If the Lifford candidate emigrated to NI, it would be a different story as he/she would be resident and paying taxes to HM to serve and protect the NI community.

mycroft wrote:

No it's not.

Your statistics talk about crime in general, it doesn't go into specifics about the type of crime, ie petty vandalism, small time drug dealing shop lifting verus, gang warfare, punishment beatings, rioting. The statistics are a gross over simplification.

Your statistics also only reflect "reported" crime. And ignores the realities of "community policing units" whom locals in certain areas will only go to, and will not report the crimes to the PSNI. Several parts of Derry and Belfast are simply no go areas for the PSNI.

Your statistics are a poor reflection of the realities of the situation, and the different policing duties in different parts of NI.

What you say above happens in ROI(even in my own area) and any other country as well you know bar the rioting which as i said before is once off around July 12th. The Garda& PSNI reports do have a breakdown of the type of crime, the 'political' is quite small in the overall picture if you had read them.
.
Crime is always under-reported everywhere, thats nothing new.

Are you saying that some NI locals in those select areas will not goto PSNI at all?..surely absurd in a democracy.

mycroft wrote:

Listen to yourself, you're now mouthing about bloody southerns coming over here and taking our jobs.

You've no evidence that the above is going to take place it's pure fantasy and speculation without a shred of evidence.

Whats to stop any prospective policing recruit in the border counties to choose the PSNI over the Gardai as the PSNI is crying out for 'Catholic' recruits?
The same applies to any prospective English 'Catholic' officer to come over and distort the 50/50 rule as well.
For the southern recruit, the PSNI has the better salary on offer than the Gardai and as police statistics in both states prove that NI is an easier place to police.

MrPudding

murphaph wrote:

@Flex: You can call it (Free)Derry if you like but that title is usually reserved by nationalists & republicans for the city as opposed to the county, which is what we're talking about here. In any case, I thought I'd addressed the parity of esteem by writing (London)Derry, with both parts of the name given a capital letter. Surely this is acceptable to unionists and nationalists alike?

Keep it simple, just call it Stroke City. Short for Derry / LondonDerry*.

* I understand that the audience here is mostly techy so just to clarify, most "normals" call / a stroke rather than a forward slash like us more technically aware.

MrP

mycroft

gurramok wrote:

What you say above happens in ROI(even in my own area) and any other country as well you know bar the rioting which as i said before is once off around July 12th. The Garda& PSNI reports do have a breakdown of the type of crime, the 'political' is quite small in the overall picture if you had read them.

And a gross oversimpflication. When the PSNI went first to arrest the mc cartney suspects they faced organised republican rioting. Rioting is a surprisingly common occurance in NI it's only reported frequently during the 12th


.

Crime is always under-reported everywhere, thats nothing new.


Are you saying that some NI locals in those select areas will not goto PSNI at all?..surely absurd in a democracy.

You're kidding right? We've had half a dozen threads this year alone over the unwilliness of locals to contact the PSNI, and SF statements about this matter in non politcal crimes.


In fact you yourself debated on a thread where members of the PSNI weren't called during UVF enforced evictions.

Suggesting that it's "absurd" that locals in those "select areas" is only absurd if you've not been following the political realities on the ground in NI.

Crime may be under reported everywhere, but there are few situations in the western world where terrorist organisation form community policing units that rule whole communities in terror and fear, communties that are virtually no go areas for the police due to organised rioting.

Whats to stop any prospective policing recruit in the border counties to choose the PSNI over the Gardai as the PSNI is crying out for 'Catholic' recruits?
The same applies to any prospective English 'Catholic' officer to come over and distort the 50/50 rule as well.
For the southern recruit, the PSNI has the better salary on offer than the Gardai

And again you're engaging in pure speculation.

and as police statistics in both states prove that NI is an easier place to police.

And again those statistics are a gross oversimplification of the realities of the situation NI and south.

murphaph

gurramok wrote:

Yes, that said prospectful candidate is not a resident of NI. Borders are there for a reason, NI is a different jurisdiction.
Recruits should come from the NI community as a representative of that community.

Fair enough, can't see anything too wrong with that.

gurramok wrote:

If the Lifford candidate emigrated to NI, it would be a different story as he/she would be resident and paying taxes to HM to serve and protect the NI community.

Ah right, so as long as the prospective member moves to NI, all is well. We agree then. I wasn't suggesting that southerners commute into NI to police the place and then scurry home over the border after their shift. So if the Lifford candidate is ok once he or she moves to NI then all southern members are ok, once they move to NI (which is what most people who don't live on top of the border would have to do).

vasch_ro

murphaph wrote:

The insurance companies (Hibernian & Axa) have been highly critical of the policing of provisional licence holders on bikes, with something lke 70% of claims made by illegally carried pillions!

.

I am aware that there was a media story rgearding this , however in my experience a lot of companies do insure mopeds to carry a pillion passenger despite the fact that they cannot legally do so on a 1st provisional, in fact its often the first thing i hear .....but I'm insured to carry passengers!!!

murphaph

MrPudding wrote:

Keep it simple, just call it Stroke City. Short for Derry / LondonDerry*.

* I understand that the audience here is mostly techy so just to clarify, most "normals" call / a stroke rather than a forward slash like us more technically aware.

MrP

Yeah but we're talking about the county MrP! I've never heard of 'Stroke county'?? Who was it that coined the 'stroke city' title again? (Gerry Anderson keeps coming into my head).

murphaph

vasch_ro wrote:

I am aware that there was a media story rgearding this , however in my experience a lot of companies do insure mopeds to carry a pillion passenger despite the fact that they cannot legally do so on a 1st provisional, in fact its often the first thing i hear .....but I'm insured to carry passengers!!!

But sure the pillion has to be insured under third party liablity! (It's an EU directive actually as the pillion may not know that his driver is only on a provisional) The insurance companies can legally persue the policy holder for the costs, but this rarely happens (if ever).

rsynnott

MrPudding wrote:

* I understand that the audience here is mostly techy so just to clarify, most "normals" call / a stroke rather than a forward slash like us more technically aware.

MrP

Actually, that's called a "slash". '\' is a backslash. Due to the popularity of the internet (HTTP uses slashes) on DOS derivatives (which use backslashes) terminology has drifted somewhat among DOS/Windows-y people.

oscarBravo

murphaph wrote:

But sure the pillion has to be insured under third party liablity! (It's an EU directive actually as the pillion may not know that his driver is only on a provisional) The insurance companies can legally persue the policy holder for the costs, but this rarely happens (if ever).

Sure about that? Not the same situation (but similar) - the insurance on my van explicitly excludes front seat passengers from cover. In fact, I'm thinking of making up a little "passengers carried at own risk" sign for it.

murphaph

oscarBravo wrote:

Sure about that? Not the same situation (but similar) - the insurance on my van explicitly excludes front seat passengers from cover. In fact, I'm thinking of making up a little "passengers carried at own risk" sign for it.

No matter what they say in the policy document, they must cover any 3rd party liability caused by your driving. Again, your passenger may be unaware that you are not supposed to be carrying them. Your insurance company will waffle about this that and the other (remember they were happy for the rumour that unaccompanied 1st and 3rd etc. provisional car drivers were uninsured when that is complete nonsense.). They are reluctant to publicise this sort of thing because tey know it's poorly policed.

gurramok

mycroft wrote:

And a gross oversimpflication. When the PSNI went first to arrest the mc cartney suspects they faced organised republican rioting. Rioting is a surprisingly common occurance in NI it's only reported frequently during the 12th

How common is rioting?...Do you reckon that its a regular occurrence and is not reported by the media...if so, can media be trusted as they do get their reports of rioting directly from PSNI, surely PSNI don't be misleading the public on the true level of rioting?
If you had seen the TV pictures and report at the time of the McCartney investigation rioting(UTV), it was stone throwing by kids under the age of 15 mostly. A priest calmed matters down.

Heavily armed riot squad afraid of kids ?

Also the last riot in ROI was at least last October up the road from me which was ongoing for a few days and reported widely in the media.

mycroft wrote:

You're kidding right? We've had half a dozen threads this year alone over the unwilliness of locals to contact the PSNI, and SF statements about this matter in non politcal crimes.
In fact you yourself debated on a thread where members of the PSNI weren't called during UVF enforced evictions.
Suggesting that it's "absurd" that locals in those "select areas" is only absurd if you've not been following the political realities on the ground in NI.
Crime may be under reported everywhere, but there are few situations in the western world where terrorist organisation form community policing units that rule whole communities in terror and fear, communties that are virtually no go areas for the police due to organised rioting.

Regarding the UVF evictions, there is dispute as to who called who on the matter, it turns out it was isolated incident and lets hope it remains that way.
Your inkling on the matter is that those communties live in fear of paramilitaries and thats why they don't goto PSNI.
I differ in that opinion, a section of working class people of both sides do not trust the PSNI but the majority of the overall population on both sides deal with the PSNI on issues from domestic crime to even traffic offences.
Various surveys have been done by the PSNI themselves showing that there is a minority who don't trust the PSNI, it wouldn't have a bearing on the overall stats on level of crime as this minority is very low in number and resident in select areas.

mycroft wrote:

And again you're engaging in pure speculation.

Speculating that there would be a flood of recruits to PSNI from ROI..yes maybe. But the facts about salary and easiness of the PSNI job is real and tempting to lure them.

mycroft wrote:

And again those statistics are a gross oversimplification of the realities of the situation NI and south.

Are you saying the PSNI are misleading the public on the reality of crime on the ground with their statistics?
Even the tourist authority claims that NI is a safe place to live and has second lowest crime level in europe.Discover Northern Ireland ...InvestNI.com say crime level in England&Wales is 34% higher than it is in NI. Are the Garda stats wrong?
Surely they can't be lying?

murphaph wrote:

Ah right, so as long as the prospective member moves to NI, all is well. We agree then. I wasn't suggesting that southerners commute into NI to police the place and then scurry home over the border after their shift. So if the Lifford candidate is ok once he or she moves to NI then all southern members are ok, once they move to NI (which is what most people who don't live on top of the border would have to do).

Yes agreed. Though I do wonder do they actually move there at all, pity there is no stats on the situation.