Life was stressful during the Troubles, but many say West Belfast has become more dangerous, writes Carissa Casey
IT'S ONE OF those strange indicators of "progress" in Northern Ireland. Violent crime by young people is now the biggest issue for residents of West Belfast.
Jeanne Carson has lived most of her life on the Lower Falls and says she never had to lock her door until two years ago. The area in front of her house is now a teenage "playground" where as many as 100 youths have congregated to drive stolen cars, drink and take drugs, she says.
"They (young hoods) are just wrecking the place. I haven't had a window in my bathroom in I don't know how long." Many of Carson's neighbours are pensioners whom she claims are often afraid to come out of their houses. Having survived 30-odd years of conflict, gun battles, police searches and the threat of a loyalist murder campaign, she claims life post-peace process on the Lower Falls is now at its most dangerous.
Two weeks ago one of Carson's neighbours, Frank McGreevy, was found battered and barely alive in his flat. He subsequently died from his injuries, the second murder victim in the area in six months. Greengrocer Harry Holland was stabbed with a screwdriver in September on Glen Road when he tried to stop his van being robbed.
"Lots of people are saying 'what was it all for?'", says Carson, referring to the years of conflict. "Years ago you could walk the streets. Now you couldn't walk the streets. I can't see peace here after this murder."
Martin Green owns a shop on the Falls Road. He echoes what other residents claim, that crime in the area began to rise in the period after the declaration of the IRA ceasefire. As the peace process took hold, the number of so-called punishment beatings meted out by paramilitaries began to fall.
Today Green regularly sees crowds of youths, as many as 100, with some as young as eight, gather to drink, take drugs and drive motorbikes in the nearby park. "I wouldn't walk about here at night. Before the ceasefire it was mad too but the paramilitaries ran the areas. If you were misbehaving you had to answer to them. That's not justice either, of course," he says.
There is still clear distrust between the community and the police. Both Green and Carson refer to the PSNI as "the RUC with a different name". Despite the vandalism taking place outside her home in the past, Carson, for example, says she has never called 999. "It's just not my policy. I've been a republican all my life and I've never phoned them in all my life. My neighbours would report stuff, though."
Robert McClenaghan, chairman of the Falls Road Residents' Association, believes the antipathy works both ways. "Some people would say it's payback time. Some people would say that there's an attitude within a section of the PSNI that says 'to hell with them', that they're paying us back for what happened during the conflict."
But he is also aware that the community is in crisis. "You have a generation that has grown up who now think they are invulnerable. It's a different enemy. It's the enemy within. It's more subtle. It's more devious." Some of the local gangs even refer to themselves in paramilitary terms. One of the most notorious is the Divis Hoods Liberation Army.
"There are different directions we could go," says McClenaghan. "From 1970 people have been shot - dead or in the legs - or beaten or put out for antisocial behaviour, but it didn't solve anything. Some people talk about it like it was the good old days but the hoods would get compensation for being shot and were back joyriding again on crutches."
The issue came home to the area's MP, Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams, in the aftermath of the latest murder. McGreevy was a life-long friend of Adams, who spoke at his funeral. A few days previously a local newspaper columnist, Squinter in the Andersonstown News, which supports Sinn Féin, had criticised Adams for not accepting his share of responsibility for the increasing lawlessness. That was last Thursday week, but in last Thursday's edition the paper issued a front-page apology to Adams. There was no Squinter column in that edition.
PSNI chief inspector Gary White is responsible for policing in West Belfast and rejects any accusation of a "payback" attitude within his force. In fact he believes much progress has been made in building trust between the local community and the police. But he also expresses frustration.
Last week, for example, a man was stabbed in West Belfast but both victim and witnesses refused to make statements. This happens regularly, he says, pointing out that there is every possibility the perpetrator may stab someone else, perhaps fatally, next time.
According to White, PSNI officers attending, say, a traffic incident in West Belfast, still come under attack from youths throwing stones. "In hardline communities - this happened on the orange side as it did on the green - people were prevented from going to the police and branded traitors," he says. "I don't think it [support for policing] is an electric light you can just turn on. It has become clear that the community is not going to change overnight."