Loyalists

This chapter turns to the Protestant community and examines paramilitary punishment attacks (PPAs) perpetrated by Loyalist paramilitaries. Although the violent methods used by Republican and Loyalist armed groups are similar, their motivation is somewhat different. In particular, the supply of PPAs carried out by Loyalist paramilitaries outweighs the demand from the local population. In this case, PPAs are used against delinquent young people, but they are also used to discipline members and settle scores within and between groups to a greater extent than in the Republican case. The chapter also examines antisocial behavior among young people in Protestant areas and finds differences between Protestants and Catholics in the specific types of offending. The explanation for this variation lies in the structure and number of Loyalist armed groups and the different types of opportunities for community recognition, which the respective political and paramilitary organizations offer to them.

Search for Status

This chapter explains the dominant features of working-class culture. In particular, the ways in which status and prestige can be gained among the adult male population, and the fact that the hoods are excluded from these paths to power, are explored. This chapter also examines the relationships between the hoods and the influence of their friends and associates on their offending. The analysis here is framed in terms of the understandings that both the hoods and ex-hoods either have or had of their antisocial behavior. Thus studying the world of the hoods in their own terms opens the way to an increased understanding of their behavior. In the process, the data revealed that rather than being anomic the hoods do adhere to a set of norms. The challenge remains to understand the hoods' subculture and make sense of their behaviors.

West Belfast

This chapter argues that, from the early days of the political conflict in the 1970s the conditions were such that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) adopted some of the functions of the state, namely the provision of policing and punishment of ordinary crime. The hostility of the statutory criminal justice system, particularly the police, toward the working-class Catholic community dramatically increased the costs of using state services. The high levels of disaffection and aggression among working-class Catholics toward the police meant that the state could no longer fulfill its function and police the community in any “normal” way. A demand for policing therefore existed. Simultaneously, this demand was met and fostered by the IRA, which had the motivation, the manpower, and the monopoly on the use of violence necessary to carry out this role.

Conclusion

This concluding chapter comments on the changing political scene in Northern Ireland and reflects on the effect that these changes will have on the roles and functions of the various Republican and Loyalist paramilitary groups. As the number of PPAs diminishes, and the phenomenon perhaps ceases altogether, the chapter considers what effect this will have on the behavior of young people who, for so many years, have been victims of this violence. Furthermore, the chapter argues that a strong and legitimate government that provides effective legal policing and protection is needed to prevent and combat organized crime. The dramatic shifts in the political landscape in Northern Ireland have laid the foundations for this, but it may be that the demand for certain goods and services such as cheap fuel are so strong that some forms of organized criminal activity are now entrenched.

Introduction

This introductory chapter illustrates the state of crime and punishment in Belfast. A major by-product of the political and civil conflict in Northern Ireland has been a lack of consensus among the population over who should police ordinary crime and how. This is clearly evidenced among the predominantly Nationalist and Republican inhabitants of West Belfast, who have consistently sought to prevent crime and punish offenders by employing a variety of informal strategies, rather than rely upon the police service. The most notorious of these informal approaches are shootings, beatings, and exclusions by Republican armed groups. The chapter then discusses the research methods and data behind the succeeding chapters.

Signaling Games

This chapter attempts to get to the heart of the matter and asks why the punishment administered by the paramilitaries and/or the state does not deter these young people from further recidivism. This lack of a specific deterrent effect violates the rational norm on which deterrence is founded, that certainty and severity of punishment will prevent reoffending, and has bewildered many local people, paramilitaries, criminal justice practitioners, and politicians for some time. The explanatory model proposed in this chapter is that of a signaling game whereby hoods engage in specific behaviors to prove their toughness and status to other hoods. The model, developed from economics, game theory, and biology, explains why people engage in self-destructive behaviors in order to gain group acceptance: often the qualities they wish to display are hard to observe by others who are interested in them and can be easily mimicked by purely verbal claims.

The Hoods

This chapter attempts to understand the behavior of the hoods by examining their specific offense patterns. It provides evidence that the hoods operate in a subculture of delinquency described as a way of life that has somehow become traditional. Sociologists studying offending among young people have provided two basic insights about juvenile delinquency: first, that it typically is not a solitary enterprise, but a group activity; and second, that delinquent activities, rather than being engaged in by biologically and psychologically abnormal individuals, typically develop in the sociological context of particular territorial locales and cultural traditions. In addition, it was recognized that delinquency took a number of forms and was engaged in for a variety of reasons.