The RUC policed Northern Ireland from the aftermath of the Irish War of Independence until after the turn of the 21st century and played a major role in the Troubles between the 1960s and the 1990s.

Due to the threat from the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who saw the RUC as enforcing British rule, the force was heavily armed and militarised.

Officers routinely carried submachine guns and assault rifles, travelled in armoured vehicles, and were based in heavily fortified police stations.

The report identified police, CID and Special Branch collusion with loyalist terrorists, but no member of the RUC has been charged or convicted of any criminal acts as a result of these inquiries.

On 31 January 1921, Richard Dawson Bates, the first Minister of Home Affairs for Northern Ireland, appointed a committee of inquiry on police organisation in the region.

Due to reluctance by the political establishment to employ too many Catholics (who were seen as potentially disloyal to the Protestant and unionist ethos of the new government) the force abandoned this policy.

[14] The RUC were supported by the Ulster Special Constabulary, a volunteer body of part-time auxiliary police established before the Northern Ireland government was set up, who had already been given uniforms and training.

The war brought additional responsibilities for the police: the security of the land border with the Republic of Ireland, which remained neutral during the war, was one important consideration; smuggling greatly increased due to rationing, to the point where police virtually became revenue officers; and many wartime regulations had to be enforced, including "black-out" requirements on house and vehicle lights, the arrest of striking workers, port security, and restrictions on the movement of vehicles and use of petrol.

[19] The RUC was a "reserved occupation", i.e. the police force was deemed essential to the domestic war effort and its members were forbidden to leave to join the other services.

The Ministry of Home Affairs finally gave approval to the enrolment of women as members of the RUC on 16 April 1943, with the first six recruits starting on 15 November, headed by Marion Paterson Macmillan, who transferred from the Metropolitan Police.

The severe pressure on the RUC and the perceived partiality of the B-Specials led, during the Northern Ireland riots of August 1969, to the British Army being called in to support the civil administration under Operation Banner.

[20][21] The high level of civil unrest led to an exhaustive inquiry into the disturbances in Northern Ireland carried out by Lord Scarman, which produced a report in 1972.

[27][28] On 11 October 1969, Constable Victor Arbuckle was shot dead by loyalists on Belfast's Shankill Road during serious rioting in protest at the recommendations of the Hunt Report.

From the mid-1970s onward, the British policy of Ulsterisation meant RUC officers taking a more prominent role in the conflict than previously, which increased their casualty rate.

[citation needed] Policing Northern Ireland's divided society proved to be difficult, as each of the main religious blocs (Protestant and Roman Catholic) had different attitudes towards the institutions of the state.

In 1924 John William Nixon, a District Inspector suspected of involvement in the murder of Catholic civilians, would be dismissed after widespread complaints that he had made a "fiercely Unionist" speech at an Orange Order function.

An inquiry by the British National Council for Civil Liberties in 1936 concluded that:[I]t is difficult to escape the conclusion that the attitude of the government renders the police chary of interference with the activities of the Orange Order and its sympathisers.

[citation needed] Seamus Mallon, Social Democratic and Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) and critic of the force, who later served as Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, stated that the RUC was "97% Protestant and 100% unionist".

[38][39] The RUC did attract some Roman Catholics, mostly former members of the RIC, who came north from the Irish Free State after the bitterness of the fighting during the Anglo-Irish War largely precluded them from remaining in territory now controlled by their enemies.

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.

[46] In an accompanying statement, HRW cited allegations that:Police officers and soldiers harass young people on the street hitting, kicking and insulting them.

The bias, and the under-representation of Catholics and nationalists in the RUC led to, as part of the Good Friday Agreement, a fundamental policing review, headed by Chris Patten, a former British Governor of Hong Kong and Conservative Minister under Margaret Thatcher.

As part of the change, the police service dropped the word "Royal" from and adopted a new badge that included the crown, harp, and shamrock, an attempt at representation of the major ideologies.

The name was changed to avoid confusion with the newly formed part-time Police Reserve in 1970,[2] and was renamed "Divisional Mobile Support Unit" in 1980 after two of its members were convicted of kidnap and murder.

[2] The two, John Weir and Billy McCaughey, implicated some of their colleagues in a range of crimes including giving weapons, information and transport to loyalist paramilitaries as well as carrying out shooting and bombing attacks of their own.

[50] In his autobiography, Stevens was at pains to point out the high regard in which he held many RUC officers, including Detective Superintendent Maurice Neilly, who was killed in the 1994 Chinook air crash.

"[53] In a report released on 22 January 2007, the Police Ombudsman Dame Nuala O'Loan stated Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) informers committed serious crimes, including murder, with the full knowledge of their handlers.

[54] The report stated that RUC Special Branch officers created false statements, blocked evidence searches and "baby-sat" suspects during interviews.

As Northern Ireland reaches a turning point in its political development this award is made to recognise the collective courage and dedication to duty of all of those who have served in the Royal Ulster Constabulary and who have accepted the danger and stress this has brought to them and to their families.

Between 1922 and 1969 the position of Inspector-General of the RUC was held by five officers, the last being Sir Arthur Young, who was seconded for a year from the City of London Police to implement the Hunt Report.