Police Should Learn From Northern Ireland

I grew up in Northern Ireland, a place that has become infamous for its residents’ behaviour during the marching season. For those who aren’t familiar with the intricate details of Ireland’s political situation, I’ll explain. Every summer, some members of one half of the community march to celebrate the values of the Orange Order, a Protestant fraternal group. Often, their actions are deeply offensive to the Catholic community, and the marches are understandably unwelcome. Disagreements over where marchers can walk often lead to large protests and occasionally riots.

When I heard I would be spending the summer in London, I was pleased to hear I would be missing this out on this yearly event. How wrong I was. I watched footage of the London riots on the news at work, only to be sent home early for my own safety. Things got pretty serious.

But what struck me as particularly scary was not the extreme nature of the riots, or even the seemingly causeless nature of them. Rather, I was shocked by London’s police force, who were simply not equipped to deal with events.

Scenes in Northern Ireland

Because riots in July are fairly common in Northern Ireland the police there know how to deal with them; they use entirely different equipment to deal with mob violence. Belfast’s police force make use of water cannons and plastic bullets, an effective way of dealing with dangerous crowds. This is exactly what Londoners have desperately been calling upon their police to use. Until yesterday, not a single one was used in Britain, and it was probably too late anyway.

In Belfast, police try and get to the scene of the riot wearing riot gear, with armoured vehicles closely behind them. They travel in large groups. The intimidation factor of a riot police squad is often enough to change the mind of youth intent on a fight. But a large number of police in London didn’t even wear full riot gear for the first few nights.

Belfast in the summer

There are differences between Northern Ireland and the London riots. A mob rarely forms on the Belfast streets without an opposite mob with opposite views on the other side. Police spend most of their time keeping rival groups apart. In London there is a seemingly united mob, which must be considerably more difficult to deal with.

But lack of sufficient equipment and resources aside, the main problem in London is that the police have been forced to be overly cautious as a result of how the rioting began. This means police can do little more than try and gain ground any time a mob moves back to regroup.

The large scale looting and rioting which has now spread to numerous UK cities doesn’t seem to have any motive other than the temptation of free loot. The behaviour is inexcusable. A combination of a large youth population, school holidays, a fantastic transport system, and a wide availability of smart phones has allowed bored teenagers to get involved. Looting TVs and laptops is evidently appealing to teenagers, who think they’ll get away with it because everyone else is doing the same.

England can’t turn the army on its own people without ruining its international reputation, so the police need to do everything they can to have a large visible presence. Not punishing groups intent on causing trouble has led people in other parts of the country to think they are free to run the streets.

If London has to learn anything from Belfast it is to go down hard on this; heavy-handed policing caused the situation but also may be the only way to solve it.