The Police Service of Northern Ireland (Irish: Seirbhís Póilíneachta Thuaisceart Éireann, Ulster Scots: Polis Servis o Norlin Airlan) is the police force that serves Northern Ireland. It is the successor to the Royal Ulster Constabulary which, in turn, was the successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary in Northern Ireland.
The RUC was renamed on 4 November 2001 as a result of a ten-year reform plan for policing set up under the Belfast Agreement. This agreement required the creation of an Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland, which became known as the Patten Commission after its chairman, Chris Patten. He originally proposed the name Northern Ireland Police Service; however the abbreviation NIPS was thought inappropriate for a variety of reasons. The final decision included in the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 was to rename the force to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (incorporating the Royal Ulster Constabulary), to be shortened to the Police Service of Northern Ireland for operational purposes.
All major political parties in Northern Ireland, nationalist and unionist support the PSNI. At first the political party Sinn Féin, which represents about a quarter of Northern Ireland voters, had refused to endorse the PSNI until Patten's recommendations were implemented in full. However, as part of the St Andrews Agreement Sinn Féin announced its full acceptance of the Police Service of Northern Ireland at a special Ard Fheis on the issue of policing on 28 January 2007.
The other major nationalist party in the region, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), has joined the Northern Ireland Policing Board and says that it is satisfied that the Patten recommendations are being implemented. In the summer of 2005, the SDLP's Alex Attwood estimated that 80% of Patten's recommendations had been implemented.
In September 2005 the PSNI established the Historical Enquiries Team to investigate the 3,269 unsolved murders committed during the Troubles.
Read more about Police Service Of Northern Ireland: Organisation, Jurisdiction, Education, Accountability, Recruitment, Policies, Uniform, Headquarters, Chief Constables, Ranks
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“... in Northern Ireland, if you don’t have basic Christianity, rather than merely religion, all you get out of the experience of living is bitterness.”
—Bernadette Devlin (b. 1947)
“We have passed the time of ... the laisser-faire [sic] school which believes that the government ought to do nothing but run a police force.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers.”
—Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke Wellington (1769–1852)
“Our ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every state which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of the northern forests who were.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Breed out of the contagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)