![handle is hein.journals/crmlsc9 and id is 1 raw text is: Contemporary Crises 9 (1985) 1-17 1
Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam - Printed in The Netherlands
CRIMINALIZATION AND THE DETENTION OF POLITICAL
PRISONERS - AN IRISH PERSPECTIVE
MARK FINDLAY
The contemporary crisis in the maintenance of civil order on both sides
of the Irish border has initiated unique developments in the system
of criminal justice within Ireland. The government of the Republic and
the administration of the Province have responded to various attacks [ 1 ]
on their legitimacy by relying on the controls of the criminal sanction,
while radically altering the process through which that sanction is applied
and accorded its full effect. While denying the political nature of the con-
flict, these governments have cloaked extraordinary social control meas-
ures in the authority of the rule of law. They would have us believe that
by relying on the controls of criminal law rather than military force alone,
violent challenges to their existence are not attacks on the substance of
the state. But how they have fundamentally altered the face of the criminal
sanction to propagate this myth of normality! And with each particular
innovation, the broader workings of criminal law in Ireland are certainly
(and perhaps insidiously) taking on a new significance for the state con-
trol function.
As common law jurisdictions, the two Irelands provide a unique ex-
ample of the criminal sanction, as applied by the state, to control political
dissent. The extraordinary measures recently enacted to deal with the
perpetrators of violence and terrorism belie the assertion that these acts
are simply criminal. With this in view, this article analyses the process
of criminalization at various stages within the system of criminal jus-
tice in Ireland. The ramifications of this policy will receive comment as
a natural, and arguably unavoidable coincidence of criminalization.
Finally, it is necessary to examine the conflict which underlies the stren-
uous application of the criminal sanction to activities which are made
marginal, in terms of politics and crime. As an example of this conflict,
and different attempts at its resolution, this article examines the deten-
tion of political prisoners in the Republic of Ireland.
N.S.W. Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Sydney, Australia
0378-1100/85/$03.30 © 1985 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/crmlsc9&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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