Royal Ulster Constabulary

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Royal Ulster Constabulary. Created under the terms of the Constabulary Act (1922) as a police force for Northern Ireland, the RUC was modelled on the Royal Irish Constabulary (disbanded in 1922), being armed and centrally controlled. The initial establishment was 3,000 men, and it was the original intention to allocate one-third of this total to catholic recruits: however this quota was never filled. The RUC lost 6 men and had 30 wounded during the Irish Republican Army campaign (1956–62); just under 200 full-time RUC men and over 100 RUC Reserve were killed between 1969 and 1994, while over 7,000 were injured. The ‘troubles’ brought radical change to the force: it was restructured along English lines in 1970, following the Hunt Report, and enlarged from 3,500 members in March 1970 to almost 8,500 members by November 1991. The Patten report in 1999 on the reorganization of the force leaned so much towards the nationalists that it may have done more to retard than promote the peace process. The RUC was replaced in 2001 by the Police Force of Northern Ireland.

Alvin Jackson/ and Professor J. A. Cannon

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