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Leading in Liminal Space: The Challenge of Policing in Northern Ireland

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Police Leadership

Abstract

This chapter draws together the current challenges faced by police leadership in Northern Ireland. These difficulties focus on both the past and the present, and it is argued that their existence is holding the police and police leaders in Northern Ireland in a liminal space between conflict and peace. A number of issues are of particular relevance. The first is the incomplete nature of the police’s own change programme and the absence of culture change at an organisational level. Allied to this is the need for the PSNI to actively create its own identity—distinctive from the RUC past and encompassing an inclusive reflection of Northern Ireland and its place in the wider world. The second is the challenge of ‘policing the past’ with the resource implication and political dangers that such a process represents. The third is the particular challenges of the current Northern Ireland political landscape: suspension of devolved institutions, austerity and Brexit.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    BBC News Northern Ireland, Unionist Unease over New Chief Constable, 30th May 2002.

  2. 2.

    Gillespie was not technically eligible to apply as she had not served the requisite 2 years outside Northern Ireland, but a consultation to amend this criteria was underway as she departed—see D. Young, I’m leaving PSNI on my own terms, insists Deputy Chief Constable Judith Gillespie, Belfast Telegraph, 13th March, 2014.

  3. 3.

    BBC News Northern Ireland McGurk’s bomb ombudsman report: Baggott criticized, 22nd February, 2011.

  4. 4.

    PSNI Chief George Hamilton urges progress on Troubles’ legacy issues Irish News 2nd November, 2016.

  5. 5.

    Derry Journal, Intelligence branch is 79 per cent Protestant, 1st September, 2018.

  6. 6.

    Irish News, PSNI Chief George Hamilton urges progress on Troubles’ legacy issues, 2nd November, 2016.

  7. 7.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-39504777.

  8. 8.

    Belfast Telegraph, 31/1/2018.

  9. 9.

    Wicked problems are those which are intrinsically interconnected with other difficult to resolve intractable matters and those which have no agreement on either the resolution of the problem or what an acceptable solution might look like (Rittel and Webber 1973).

  10. 10.

    Belfast Telegraph, 31/1/2018.

  11. 11.

    Belfast Telegraph, 12/1/2018.

  12. 12.

    Irish News, 1/2/2018.

  13. 13.

    https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/belfast-pride-gives-uniformed-psni-and-garda-officers-a-joyous-reception-36003333.html.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Queen’s Management School, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK

    Joanne Murphy

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  1. Joanne Murphy
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Correspondence to Joanne Murphy .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Criminology, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Pauline Ramshaw

  2. School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Marisa Silvestri

  3. Teesside University, Middlesbrough, UK

    Mark Simpson

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Murphy, J. (2019). Leading in Liminal Space: The Challenge of Policing in Northern Ireland. In: Ramshaw, P., Silvestri, M., Simpson, M. (eds) Police Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21469-2_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21469-2_9

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-21468-5

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