Little progress has been made on policing in South Armagh despite more than two decades of peace, with the Crossmaglen area in particular appearing to operate almost independently of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
That’s the inescapable conclusion from the recent South Armagh Policing Review published by the PSNI. Indeed, the gulf between the community in and around Crossmaglen, and the force that is supposed to police it, appears to be widening.
In 2019-2020, there were only 16 emergency calls to Crossmaglen station. Almost all reported crimes relate to crime that has taken place outside the area. Overall, calls to the police are falling in the area while increasing elsewhere; this despite the heavy presence of organised crime in the area and the very high levels of deprivation in the region.
Contributors to the report spoke of the “hurt” felt in the area as a lingering hangover from the Troubles and of the distrust that remained. Others said there was simply “no point” in involving the police in any matters. That was a predictable sentiment in an area effectively controlled by the Provisional IRA for decades and where their power, at least the perception of it, is still real. Policing was militarised for decades across the North. Much of that has remained in South Armagh, including the fortified Crossmaglen station and the use of armored vehicles.
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Indeed the South Armagh Police Review was prompted by the controversy surrounding a social media post on Christmas Day 2019 in which PSNI chief constable Simon Byrne was pictured outside Crossmaglen police station with officers carrying PSNI-issue assault rifles. The review makes recommendations to normalise the South Armagh region from a security and policing perspective. It also recommended facilitating cross-Border Garda or PSNI pursuits. Much greater levels of cooperation between the Garda and PSNI were also suggested.
Political responses broke down along familiar lines. Sinn Féin was in favour of the cross-Border recommendations. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) did not merely disapprove; it launched a ferocious attack on Byrne and wondered whether there would soon be "Garda patrols in Newry". If "external training" was introduced for PSNI officers in South Armagh, as the report suggested, would "fuel smugglers (be) sponsoring the training facility"? The nature of the political reaction is largely a function of wider undercurrents; tensions are still running high over the Northern Ireland protocol and the DUP's response to the threat from rival unionist parties has been to revert to the hardline rhetoric of old. Indeed, the political reaction offered as much insight as the report did into the need for South Armagh to move on 23 years after the Belfast Agreement.