Informal social control and crime management in Belfast

This papers examines the interplay between informal social control, civil u nrest and local crime management in Belfast. Official crime management is t he responsibility of the police, but where this role is contested, 'popular ' or local forms of crime management occur. The local management of crime i s accomplished in certain localities in Belfast by several mechanisms that extend beyond the policing role of the paramilitaries, and popular crime ma nagement is rooted in social processes, such as the survival of community s tructures, extended family kinship patterns, neighbourliness and legitimate authority accorded to community representatives, which constitute importan t informal social controls. Informal social control is recognized as import ant in inhibiting crime, but this paper reports on its role in the manageme nt of crime in the absence of reporting it to the police. These informal so cial controls are localized, being mediated by class, communal redevelopmen t, civil unrest and other social transformations affecting the locality. In this respect, political violence has helped, locally, to protect some area s from the worst vagaries of community breakdown and dislocation, with a po sitive effect on crime management. These issues are explored ethnographical ly by means of in-depth qualitative research.