Background to the Research

• The formal declarations of cease-fire by the IRA and the Combined Loyalist Command in 1994 have led to significant changes in the scale and nature of violence within Northern Irish Society. But while much of the paramilitary violence has stopped, there has been a greater recognition of the growing problems of other forms of violent behaviour. The most notable of these are attacks by paramilitary groups on members of their own community, domestic violence, racist violence, homophobic violence and low-level sectarian violence. The report explores some of the factors that underpin the emergence and persistence of interface violence and some of the attempts that are being made to counter the problem. It begins by discussing the nature of interface areas before exploring the nature of interface violence. This is followed by a consideration of some of the approaches taken by community-based organisations to address the problem. The report concludes by looking at the issues within a wider social policy context.

Research Approach

• This report is an extension and development of an earlier report related to conflict management (Jarman, 1999). The recommendations of the report are situated within the framework of both the Patten Report on Policing and the Report of the Criminal Justice Review body.
  

Main Findings

• Over the past thirty years persistent violence of the Troubles has meant that communities have become more segregated than perhaps at any time in the past. An interface is a term used to describe the common boundary between a predominately Protestant/unionist area and a predominately Catholic/nationalist area; while an interface community is the community which lives alongside an interface.
• Interface areas are both marginal and marginalised areas. One result of this marginalisation is that interface communities typically experience an unusual combination of disadvantage.
• In a study of interface communities in 1994, Brendan Murtagh found that 55% of residents had experienced stone throwing, 41% had experienced shootings or bombings, 34% had experienced rioting and over 15% had experienced petrol bombings.
• As a result of the violence in North Belfast in 1996, meetings took place between the community sector and key statutory agencies who concluded that there was a need for an overhaul of contingency plans and working arrangements and a need for more flexible and imaginative responses to major public disorder.
• Problems of poor communication were addressed by setting up a network of mobile phones given to community groups and community workers in interface areas.
• The project proved to be a useful way of consolidating or extending working relationships and building trust between the community and statutory sectors. Despite the project's proven success funding is never secure.
• In many areas community groups sought funding to provide local summer schemes for their children, both to compliment and extend similar programmes run by statutory bodies.
• Multi-agency partnership working, which is much vaunted, has yet to prove itself in practice.

Recommendations

• There is need for a firm commitment of resources far enough in advance to allow community based organisations to plan their work and use the resources in the most effective manner.
• The adoption and implementation of the recommendations of either the Patten Report or the Report of the Criminal Justice Review body would provide a possible source of funding for projects which aim to address issues and problems of common concern.
• There is a need for a more efficient or 'joined-up' use of existing resources.
• Community-based groups who work in interface areas need to work more in partnership with statutory bodies.