The role of the community service order and the suspended sentence in Ireland: a judicial perspective

Imprisonment is the most severe penalty utilised by the criminal courts in Ireland. In recent decades the prison population has grown significantly despite expressions both official and public to reduce the use of the sanction. Two other sanctions are available to the Irish sentencer which may be used as a direct and comparable sentence in lieu of a term of imprisonment namely, the community service order and the suspended sentence. The community service order remains under-utilised as an alternative to the custodial sentence. The suspended sentence is used quite liberally but its function may be more closely related to the aim of deterrence rather than avoiding the use of the custodial sentence. Thus the aim of decarceration may not be optimal in practice when either sanction is utilised. The decarcerative effect of either sanction is largely dependent upon the specific purpose which judges invest in the sanction. Judges may also be inhibited in the use of either sanction if they lack confidence that the sentence will be appropriately monitored and executed. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the role of the community service order and the suspended sentence in Irish sentencing practice. Although community service and the suspended sentence present primarily as alternatives to the custodial sentence, the manner in which the judges utilise or fail to utilise the sanctions may differ significantly from this primary manifestation. Therefore the study proceeds to examine the judges' cognitions and expectations of both sanctions to explore their underlying purposes and to reveal the manner in which the judges use the sanctions in practice. To access this previously undisclosed information a number of methodologies were deployed. An extensive literature review was conducted to delineate the purpose and functionality of both sanctions. Quantitative data was gathered by way of sampling for the suspended sentence and the part-suspended sentence where deficiencies were apparent to show the actual frequency in use of that sanction. Qualitative methodologies were used by way of focus groups and semi-structured interviews of judges at all jurisdictional levels to elucidate the purposes of both sanctions. These methods allowed a deeper investigation of the factors which may promote or inhibit such usage. The relative under-utilisation of the community service order as an alternative to the custodial sentence may in part be explained by a reluctance by some judges to equate it with a real custodial sentence. For most judges who use the sanction, particularly at summary level, community service serves a decarcerative function. The suspended sentence continues to be used extensively. It operates partly as a decarcerative penalty but the purpose of deterrence may in practice overtake its theoretical purpose namely the avoidance of custody. Despite ongoing criticism of executive agencies such as the Probation Service and the Prosecution in the supervision of such penalties both sanctions continue to be used. Engagement between the Criminal Justice actors may facilitate better outcomes in the use of either sanction. The purposes for which both sanctions are deployed find their meaning essentially in the practices of the judges themselves as opposed to any statutory or theoretical claims upon their use or purpose.

Politically motivated former prisoner groups: community activism and conflict transformation

Aims and objectives: This study represents the first sustained quantitative and qualitative attempt to involve both Republicans and Loyalists in an investigation of the impact of imprisonment and the role of politically motivated former prisoners in the process of conflict transformation in Northern Ireland. The overall aim of the project is to examine the ways in which groups of former prisoners are involved in peace-building and conflict transformation work and to evaluate the constraints and impediments placed upon their activities by the effects of the imprisonment process, politically motivated release and residual criminalisation. In pursuing the evaluation of the role of politically motivated former prisoners working within and without their own communities, the research has six specific objectives: To trace the evolution and development of former prisoner groups; To evaluate the impacts of imprisonment and release on the personal lives of former prisoners; To assess the constraints imposed on former prisoners as agents of change by the residual criminalisation arising from their status; To determine the potential of the former prisoner community in challenging intra-community tensions and evaluate their potential and actual contribution to conflict transformation at the inter-community level; To compare and contrast the effectiveness of Loyalist and Republican former prisoners as agents of change within their own communities; To explore the notion of former prisoners as agents of social and communal transformation within broader political processes through grounding the knowledge and practical experience of the former prisoner community within the broader conceptual context of conflict transformation.

Participation by place-based community organisations in local development: case studies from East Cork

The past two decades have witnessed concerted efforts by theorists and policy-makers to place civil society at the centre of social, economic and environmental development processes. To this end, policies grounded in a Third Way approach have sought to forge stronger linkages between the state and voluntary community-based organisations. Concepts such as active citizenship, social capital, partnership and sustainability have underpinned this political philosophy, which reflects a movement in development theory and political science away from notions of state-led development and unfettered neo-liberalism. In the Irish context, a series of initiatives have given expression to this new policy agenda, the foremost amongst them the publication of a White Paper in 2000. New local governance structures and development schemes have multiplied since the early 1990s, while the physical planning system has also been modified. All this has taken place against the backdrop of unprecedented economic development and social change precipitated by the ‘Celtic Tiger’.This thesis examines the interaction between community organisations, state institutions and other actors in development processes in East Cork. It focuses upon place-based community organisations, who seek to represent the interests of their particular localities. A case study approach is employed to explore the realpolitik of local development and to gauge the extent to which grassroots community organisations wield influence in determining the development of their communities. The study concludes that the transfer of decision-making power to community organisations has been more illusory than real and that, in practical terms, such groups remain marginal in the circuits of power. However, the situation of community organisations operating in different geographical locales cannot be reduced to an overarching theoretical logic. The case studies show that the modus operandi of community groups varies considerably and can be influenced by specific local geographies, events and personalities.

The impact of new public management on the roles of elected councillors, management and the community sector in Irish local government: a case study of Cork County Council

The fundamental aim of this thesis is to examine the effect of New Public Management (NPM) on the traditional roles of elected representatives, management and community activists in Irish local government. This will be achieved through a case study analysis of one local authority, Cork County Council. NPM promises greater democracy in decision-making. Therefore, one can hypothesise that the roles of the three key groupings identified will become more influenced by principles of participatory decision-making. Thus, a number of related questions will be addressed by this work, such as, have the local elected representatives been empowered by NPM? Has a managerial revolution taken place? Has local democracy been enhanced by more effective community participation? It will be seen in chapter 2 that these questions have not been adequately addressed to date in NPM literature. The three groups identified can be regarded as stakeholders although the researcher is cautious in using this term because of its value-laden nature. Essentially, in terms of Cork County Council, stakeholders can be defined as decision-makers and people within the organization and its environment who are interested in or could be affected directly or indirectly by organizational performance. This is an all-embracing definition and includes all citizens, residents, community groups and client organizations. It is in this context that the term 'stakeholder' should be understood when it is occasionally used in this thesis. In this case, the perceptions of elected councilors, management and community representatives with regard to their changing roles are as significant as the changes themselves. The chapter begins with a brief account of the background to this research. This is followed by an explanation of the methodology which is used and then concludes with short statements about the remaining chapters in the thesis.

Police accountability in Ireland: an analysis of the problems posed by the legal, constitutional and political dimensions and how they might be addressed

The concept of police accountability is not susceptible to a universal or concise definition. In the context of this thesis it is treated as embracing two fundamental components. First, it entails an arrangement whereby an individual, a minority and the whole community have the opportunity to participate meaningfully in the formulation of the principles and policies governing police operations. Second, it presupposes that those who have suffered as victims of unacceptable police behaviour should have an effective remedy. These ingredients, however, cannot operate in a vacuum. They must find an accommodation with the equally vital requirement that the burden of accountability should not be so demanding that the delivery of an effective police service is fatally impaired. While much of the current debate on police accountability in Britain and the USA revolves around the issue of where the balance should be struck in this accommodation, Ireland lacks the very foundation for such a debate as it suffers from a serious deficit in research and writing on police generally. This thesis aims to fill that gap by laying the foundations for an informed debate on police accountability and related aspects of police in Ireland. Broadly speaking the thesis contains three major interrelated components. The first is concerned with the concept of police in Ireland and the legal, constitutional and political context in which it operates. This reveals that although the Garda Siochana is established as a national force the legal prescriptions concerning its role and governance are very vague. Although a similar legislative format in Britain, and elsewhere, have been interpreted as conferring operational autonomy on the police it has not stopped successive Irish governments from exercising close control over the police. The second component analyses the structure and operation of the traditional police accountability mechanisms in Ireland; namely the law and the democratic process. It concludes that some basic aspects of the peculiar legal, constitutional and political structures of policing seriously undermine their capacity to deliver effective police accountability. In the case of the law, for example, the status of, and the broad discretion vested in, each individual member of the force ensure that the traditional legal actions cannot always provide redress where individuals or collective groups feel victimised. In the case of the democratic process the integration of the police into the excessively centralised system of executive government, coupled with the refusal of the Minister for Justice to accept responsibility for operational matters, project a barrier between the police and their accountability to the public. The third component details proposals on how the current structures of police accountability in Ireland can be strengthened without interfering with the fundamentals of the law, the democratic process or the legal and constitutional status of the police. The key elements in these proposals are the establishment of an independent administrative procedure for handling citizen complaints against the police and the establishment of a network of local police-community liaison councils throughout the country coupled with a centralised parliamentary committee on the police. While these proposals are analysed from the perspective of maximising the degree of police accountability to the public they also take into account the need to ensure that the police capacity to deliver an effective police service is not unduly impaired as a result.

Community workers' understandings and practices of resistance

This research is focused on Community Workers located in Southern Ireland, and their understandings and practices of resistance. It is an attempt to explore the ways in which community workers’ understandings and practices of resistance are formed and, in turn, inform their sense of identity and their responses to the wider context of community development work in Ireland today. This study is specifically located but also has wider application and relevance because of the extended international reach of neo-liberal and managerial rationalities, and their implications for politics, policy and practice. The study considers resistance in a number of inter-related ways: as a collective oppositional position (with negative and positive dimensions); a personal and/or professional value (associated with the ‘expansion of contention’); a strategy for negotiating unequal power relations (in a range of levels and spaces of power); an identity (in relation to the sustaining of ‘reflexive subjectivities’); a set of practices, (which take into account the interplay between economic, political and cultural influences); and an educational process through which practitioners assess and enact personal and professional agency. Critical theorisations of community development and of the Irish state over time, trace the ways in which neo-liberalism and managerialism has inflected community development practice and the positions of community workers and communities in that process. The study draws on James C. Scott, Gramsci, Barnes and Prior, among others, which enabled the interrogation of resistance in relation to everyday practices through engaging with ‘hidden transcripts’ and spaces. The method chosen was focus group discussions with three groups of community workers located in different counties in Southern Ireland. This method facilitated a deep discourse analysis of practitioners’ encounters with resistance in the field of community work. Key findings relate to the various interpretations of the role of resistance, practices of resistance (including current restrictions), the value of resistance work and the conditions that may be conducive to practising resistance.

The accountability of transnational armed groups under international law

Terrorist attacks by transnational armed groups cause on average 15,000 deaths every year worldwide, with the law enforcement agencies of some states facing many challenges in bringing those responsible to justice. Despite various attempts to codify the law on transnational terrorism since the 1930s, a crime of transnational terrorism under International Law remains contested, reflecting concerns regarding the relative importance of prosecuting members of transnational armed groups before the International Criminal Court. However, a study of the emerging jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court suggests that terrorist attacks cannot be classified as a war crime or a crime against humanity. Therefore, using organisational network theory, this thesis will probe the limits of international criminal law in bringing members of transnational armed groups to justice in the context of changing methods of warfare. Determining the organisational structure of transnational armed groups, provides a powerful analytical framework for examining the challenges in holding members of transnational armed groups accountable before the International Criminal Court, in the context of the relationship between the commanders and the subordinate members of the group.

Leadership in the community sector: promoting collaboration and social change in Belfast

Community development is centrally concerned with people in communities working together to achieve a common goal, that is, to collaborate, whether within local geographical communities, in communities of shared interests or among groups sharing a common identity. Its overarching goal is one of progressive transformational social change. As Belfast transitions from a conflict to a post-conflict society, there is a need for greater, more effective work at local community level in order to address a range of ongoing social and economic issues facing communities, including high levels of disadvantage and division. Given the significance of leadership in building effective collaboration and the centrality of collaboration for community development, it is important to understand how leadership is currently enacted and what kinds of leadership are required to support communities to collaborate effectively to bring about social change. This thesis thus centers on the kind of leadership practised and required to support collaboration for social change within the community sector in Belfast, a city that contains an estimated 28% of the total number of community and voluntary sector (CVS) organisations in Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action, 2012). Through a series of qualitative, in-depth interviews with people playing leadership roles in local communities, the study critically explores and analyses their experiences and perceptions in relation to leadership and collaboration. Community development in Belfast today is practised within a wider context of neoliberal policies, characterised by austerity and public spending cuts. Whilst not the only influencing factor, this context has had a particular and profound impact on the nature and role of community development practised, and on the kind of leadership enacted within it. The space for reflection and transformative action appears to be shrinking as the contraction of resources to support community development in local communities continues unabated. Those playing leadership roles increasingly find themselves compelled to spend time seeking resources and managing complex funding arrangements rather than focusing on the social change dimensions of their work. Collaboration as promoted by the state seems to have become an instrumental tactic used to implement its austerity measures and curtail the potential of the community sector. Despite this, local leaders are driving initiatives that attempt to push back, helping the sector refocus on its transformational goals of social change. To do this requires support. Those playing leadership roles require resources, including time, to encourage and enable communities to reconnect with the purpose and underpinning values of community development. Leaders also need support to develop and promote new, progressive narratives and visions and pursue these through building collaboration and solidarity.