| Abstract: | The author is a former Loyalist prisoner who recently carried out a piece of research in the Loyalist community of the Greater Shankill District of Belfast. That research was designed to explore with a range of community activists (including Loyalist paramilitaries) the potential for an alternative strategy to the current system of punishment beatings and shootings. The author argues that this can only be achieved by distinguishing between the types of activities that attract the attention of Loyalist paramilitaries and focusing intervention only upon those areas where it may readistically have an effect, i.e. that matter relating to the internal discipline of Loyalist paramilitary members and disputes between groupings relating to drugs will by necessity fall outside any potential intervention. He goes on to offer the outline of a programme designed as an alternative to punishment beatings which could prove to be effective within those parameters despite the acknowledged difficulties. |
