NCJ Number
183146
Date Published
2000
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This study examines politically active women's experiences with police in Northern Ireland in an attempt to further understand the politics of criminalization and the intersection of political and gendered policing.
Abstract
The study examined the experiences of 100 politically active women in Northern Ireland, focusing on working-class women. This involved recent field work that is still being conducted. The women interviewed were affiliated in one way or another with most of the political parties and organizations in Northern Ireland; these included women who described themselves as nonpartisan but were involved in human rights work or the women's movement. Emergency legislation has existed in Northern Ireland since partition in 1922. Such legislation established the extensive policing power that the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the British Army continue to employ. This study focuses on four areas of police power: stop, search, and question; house raids; arrest; and interrogation. From the responses in this study, it is clear that the use of police powers of stop, search, and question are subject to abuse, and they are not applied in a fair and impartial manner. Moreover, they create another arena in which women are openly and routinely subjected to sexual harassment and the threat of violence. Women with children invariably reported concern over the effect that house raids had on their children. Younger Republican women also reported experiencing derogatory sexual comments and threats of sexual violence on numerous occasions during house raids. Republican women reported often brutal and terrifying arrests, frequently within their own homes; on such occasions police did not consider the welfare of the women's children. Regarding interrogation, every mother in the sample had the welfare of her children threatened if she did not cooperate with her interrogators. 19 references