The TRUTH – We’ve updated PSNI recruitment advertising.
Just like the RUC was retained and rebranded, it’s much despised ‘Special Branch’ did not go away either. Well known for its part in British state collusion and its links to loyalist paramilitaries, RUC Special Branch received the same lick of paint as the RUC itself, and was rebranded and re-formed into what is now known as ‘C3 Intelligence Branch’.
C3’s responsibilities include intelligence gathering by undercover agents, the infiltration of political organisations for the aim of disruption and gathering intelligence, and the recruitment and running of informers. It is public knowledge that this recruitment includes the use of children as informers, as part of PSNI policy.
Well known amongst Republican political activists in the Six Counties and working hand in glove with C3 Intelligence Branch are the PSNI’s ‘Tactical Support Group’. The TSG are trained in ‘specialist tactics’, its duties include search, methods of entry, ‘counter terrorism’ and surveillance amongst others. TSG patrols support C3 Intelligence Branch, Britain’s National Crime Agency and other intelligence agencies including Mi5. They are well known for their use of Stop and Search legislation to harass political and community activists.
These two agencies, C3 and the TSG, provide the basis of a re-branded RUC Special Branch. They use the same tactics and methods as the Special Branch, and for the same purpose. And it is not only the political, tactical and methodical approach to ‘policing’ that has remained the same, their religious balance stands in stark contrast to the PSNI’s broader statistics and that of the Six Counties as a whole. A 2016 ‘Labour Force Survey’ indicated that, of the working age population in the Six Counties, 44% were Catholic and 40% were Protestant.
But according to recent statistics published by the PSNI, their broader religious make-up comprises 67% perceived as ‘Protestant’ and 32% perceived as ‘Catholic’.
Compare this with the C3 Intelligence Branch, a huge 79% of which are Protestant personnel, of which 92% are former RUC officers.
In 2013 the PSNI stated that ‘…the average length of total Police service for Regular Police who are currently attached to C3 Intelligence is 19 ½ years. There are prerequisites to transfer into C3 Intelligence Branch based on qualifications and other factors. Therefore the 50/50 recruitment since…2001 will not have had a major effect on Community Background in C3 Intelligence Branch’.
Indeed, many years of a 50/50 recruitment policy has done little to impact the makeup of the new Special Branch. It remains almost 80% protestant, a dim representation of a population that is almost 50% Catholic; not that it would matter anyway.
Little wonder then that, employing the same modus operandi, the same political direction and indeed the same workforce, we have the same outcomes.
C3 Intelligence Branch is, for all intents and purposes, RUC Special Branch.
This is just one reason why you shouldn’t join the PSNI.
