‘An Acceptable Level of Violence’ Community Response to Crime: Northern Ireland and South Africa

This paper, drawing on focus group interview material, will therefore examine ways in which the communities in Northern Ireland and South Africa have responded to crime both during the conflict and thereafter. If the raison d’être for ‘political’ crime has been removed once a negotiated settlement is reached and the legitimacy of the State reaffirmed by agreement, can communities then subscribe to the formal system of criminal justice? Given the relatively recent, albeit fragile, arrival of a ‘peace’ settlement to Northern Ireland the paper considers what lessons, if any, can be learned from the South African post-conflict experience and its efforts to deal with community responses to crime

Violence in a Changing Political Context: Northern Ireland and South Africa

Northern Ireland and South Africa are moving from conflict to post-conflict societies. Both countries have new political dispensations and seek to eschew the legacy of bitter and bloody violence. The history of the political struggles has, however, embedded a culture tolerant of violence characterised by descriptions such as ‘an acceptable level of violence’ or ‘an imperfect peace’. Somehow the threshold of violence is different/higher in these countries because of their transitional status. This chapter will therefore explore how the meaning of violence is inextricably linked to the political context in Northern Ireland and South Africa. Specifically it will examine the continuing role of violence meted out by paramilitary/vigilante groups to alleged wrongdoers within the communities in which they operate, the stranglehold these groups exert and how, if at all, this is changing. The role played by the police and the criminal justice systems will also be discussed within the new era of established political systems that have replaced ‘white rule’ and ‘direct rule’ in South Africa and Northern Ireland respectively

Fear of Reprisal – Researching Intra-Communal Violence in Northern Ireland and South Africa

Measuring the impact of violence is fraught with problems, not least because of the definitional problems around what constitutes violence and how this might be quantified. If one considers violence perpetrated by paramilitaries in Northern Ireland or vigilante groups in South Africa then the task becomes even more difficult. This chapter will examine methodological problems associated with gaining access to, and undertaking research in, the dangerous arena of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland and vigilante violence in South Africa. It will consider the difficulties in obtaining reliable information on the levels of violence particularly from official police sources, and the way in which this type of crime is classified. Other statistical sources such as pressure group data will be examined and problems highlighted with the use of documentation gleaned from tendentious organisations. Data about the impact of violence from primary research are also fraught with problems. Victims, for example, can be reluctant interviewees for fear of paramilitary/vigilante reprisal. A ‘victim’ of paramilitary/vigilante ‘punishment’ may be an erstwhile perpetrator of violence. Should one treat internecine turf wars between paramilitaries in Northern Ireland in a similar way to violence meted out in pursuit of their political goals? These and other issues make the measurement of the impact of violence difficult methodological questions. This chapter will therefore highlight these problems and examine how we managed them within this study of intra-communal violence

Fear of Reprisal – Researching Intra-Communal Violence in Northern Ireland and South Africa

Measuring the impact of violence is fraught with problems, not least because of the definitional problems around what constitutes violence and how this might be quantified. If one considers violence perpetrated by paramilitaries in Northern Ireland or vigilante groups in South Africa then the task becomes even more difficult. This chapter will examine methodological problems associated with gaining access to, and undertaking research in, the dangerous arena of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland and vigilante violence in South Africa. It will consider the difficulties in obtaining reliable information on the levels of violence particularly from official police sources, and the way in which this type of crime is classified. Other statistical sources such as pressure group data will be examined and problems highlighted with the use of documentation gleaned from tendentious organisations. Data about the impact of violence from primary research are also fraught with problems. Victims, for example, can be reluctant interviewees for fear of paramilitary/vigilante reprisal. A ‘victim’ of paramilitary/vigilante ‘punishment’ may be an erstwhile perpetrator of violence. Should one treat internecine turf wars between paramilitaries in Northern Ireland in a similar way to violence meted out in pursuit of their political goals? These and other issues make the measurement of the impact of violence difficult methodological questions. This chapter will therefore highlight these problems and examine how we managed them within this study of intra-communal violence

‘An Acceptable Level of Violence’ Community Response to Crime: Northern Ireland and South Africa

This paper, drawing on focus group interview material, will therefore examine ways in which the communities in Northern Ireland and South Africa have responded to crime both during the conflict and thereafter. If the raison d’être for ‘political’ crime has been removed once a negotiated settlement is reached and the legitimacy of the State reaffirmed by agreement, can communities then subscribe to the formal system of criminal justice? Given the relatively recent, albeit fragile, arrival of a ‘peace’ settlement to Northern Ireland the paper considers what lessons, if any, can be learned from the South African post-conflict experience and its efforts to deal with community responses to crime

The Outsourcing of State Security:A Case Study of US Intervention in Laos, 1962–1975

The United States (US) involvement in covert action abroad has received significant scholarly attention, including the outsourcing of force to third parties, such as foreign death squads, private paramilitaries, and more recently private military and security companies. However, less attention has been paid to the routine and everyday mechanisms the US state uses to administer outsourced force, and the impacts this has both on the combatants and civilians. Through a historical examination of the covert conflict in Laos from 1962–1975, this article documents the routine administrative mechanisms the US state employed to prosecute an illegal war. This article’s principal contribution to the state crime literature is the documentation of the hidden harms this generated both for the combatants used and the civilians affected by the violence. This contribution is grounded in interviews conducted with ex-service people from the conflict period and archival research, including recently declassified materials

Protecting Crowded Places from Terrorism: An analysis of the current considerations and barriers inhibiting the adoption of counter terrorism protective security measures

© 2018, © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. While much of the literature concerning counterterrorism focuses on policies and strategies aimed at removing either the terrorist environment and/or the groups or individuals willing to utilize political violence to achieve their goal(s), there is a much smaller body of work concerned with antiterrorism, namely those defensive measures that are designed to prevent or deter terrorist attacks. Increasingly, crowded places have become popular targets for terrorists and the research presented in this article connects the planning, design, and development of real estate with respect to the adoption of protective counterterrorism measures. It seeks to develop new understandings of the considerations that real estate developments have toward terrorism, as well as the barriers that may inhibit counterterrorism protective security measures in future development projects. The analysis is based on qualitative research, namely semi-structured interviews conducted in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia with professionals involved in all core strands of the real estate development process. The findings suggest that considerations toward terrorism vary considerably as a consequence of a range of factors and that while expected factors such as cost and aesthetics are important determinants for decision making, a range of other barriers exist