page_title: Royal Ulster Constabulary
section_title: Ill-treatment of children
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Ulster Constabulary / Criticism / Ill-treatment of children
caption_attribution_description: English: Ogra Shinn Fein sticker regarding the RUC
context_page_description: The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary following the partition of Ireland. At its peak the force had around 8,500 officers with a further 4,500 who were members of the RUC Reserve.
  The RUC policed Northern Ireland during the aftermath of the Irish War of Independence, the Second World War, the Irish Republican Army's Northern Campaign and Border Campaign, and throughout the Troubles. Due to the threat from the IRA, who saw the RUC as enforcing British rule, the RUC was an armed and militarized police force. Officers routinely carried submachine guns and assault rifles, travelled in armoured Land Rovers, and were based in heavily-fortified police stations. It was the first police force to use rubber and plastic bullets for riot control. The RUC's membership was overwhelmingly Protestant and it was accused by sections of the Catholic and Irish nationalist minority of one-sided policing and sectarianism. Officers were also accused of police brutality as well as collusion with loyalist paramilitaries.
context_section_description: On 1 July 1992, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a detailed report, alleging RUC and paramilitary violations against children's rights during the Troubles. Both Catholic and Protestant children alleged regular and severe physical assault and mental harassment at the hands of RUC officers, usually conducted to force a false confession of a crime. In an accompanying statement, HRW cited allegations that:
  Police officers and soldiers harass young people on the street hitting, kicking and insulting them. Police officers in interrogation centres insult, trick and threaten youngsters and sometimes physically assault them. Children are locked up in adult detention centres and prisons in shameful conditions. Helsinki Watch heard dozens of stories from children, their parents, lawyers, youth workers and political leaders of children being stopped on the street and hit, kicked and abused again and again by police and soldiers. And seventeen-year-olds told Human Rights Watch Helsinki of severe beatings in detention during interrogations by police.
caption: An Ógra Shinn Féin propaganda sticker calling for the RUC to be disbanded
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