Kilpatrick (1997) carried out her research into joyriding in Belfast in early 1994 and I missed her work in writing up mine. I cited many other’s work in both Northern Ireland and the Republic but mostly on the generics of joyriding. I avoided examining the specifics of the situation there as the Troubles (’68-98 according to Encyclopaedia Brittanica) were ongoing (and still very resonant today). I briefly touched on some of the differences for joyriding in Belfast (all the work seemed to be on this area) in my PhD. Not only might joyriders attract the attention of the police (then the Royal Ulster Constabulary, RUC) but also the British Army. They risked shooting by either if they crashed through - or came too close to - a checkpoint. In addition the loyalist and republican paramilitary forces actively ‘policed’ anti-social behaviour. The provisional IRA (pIRA) were known to ‘kneecap’ joyriders - that is disable them by shooting them in the knee - or deliver a punishment beating.
Yet despite these additional high risk factors for joyriders the descriptions in Kilpatrick are entirely in line with my, and others, findings. Her work with 15 juvenile offenders who had stolen cars or allowed themselves to be carried in such a car. They mostly did it for the thrill, usually in company, didn’t necessarily look for the added excitement of a police chase and might steal from the car and may graduate to fewer but more professional theft. Not only was Belfast the focus Kilpatrick points out some real differences in the narrowness of that focus, more than half the cars thefts in Northern Ireland were in Belfast with South Belfast (near the University) a particular hotspot with 85% being recovered (a high rate) and of those two thirds being found in West Belfast (a largely Catholic, republican area).
Mulcahy (2013) adds some further Northern Ireland specific facts/suggestions. The heavy armour on police and army vehicles made chases less than feasible and considerations of public policy counselled against them. He mentions a suggestion that the youngest member of a joyriding team might act as a ‘sandbag’ (to absorb bullets) by lying on the parcel shelf.
Some of this situation is captured in this account of a joyrider who was kneecapped (O’Docherty, 1993). Johnny McGivern had stolen more than 100 cars and had signed a document presented by the pIRA promising not to steal any more cars. He did and he and his friend received a public beating with a baseball bat and chair leg. He stole another car and was arrested by the legal authorities but the station where he was being held was bombed and he was released for his safety before being formally questioned. He continued to offend and was eventually shot in the leg by the pIRA as were 58 others that year. Such joyriders were seen to be anti-social to their own community through theft of cars and dangerously displaying them but also as potential informers if they came within the orbit of the security services. The young men didn’t see themselves as political or particularly criminal. They were not ‘hoods’ (ie gangsters) (McCullough and Schmidt, 1990).
The Extern organisation tried to work with and for such young men with an Auto Project offering car mechanics and banger racing (set up in 1981!). Their research McCullough et al (1990) sets out how car theft then was less of a problem than in the rest of UK or Ireland (South Wales said to have a particularly bad problem) but joyriding in Belfast was seen to be a particular problem. McCullough and Schmidt (1990) interviewed joyriders and those who work with them. They too focussed on Catholic West Belfast. They note young women did steal cars or more often allowed themselves to be carried in stolen cars ‘but the number is relatively insignificant’ (1990,2).
They establish a timeline in which accounts of joyriding in Belfast the start in the late 60s when paramilitary groups encouraged teenagers to steal cars and antagonise the Security forces by burning cars to use as roadblocks or diversions. As these tactics increasingly annoyed the communities in which they lived the pIRA turned against them and instated informal punitive sanctions. So the joyriders proclivities were enrolled in republican/nationalist protest against British rule. Acting against them formed a part of the pIRA’s localist politics. Thought there is some suggestion that more cars might be stolen after a punishment shooting as a ‘collective act of defiance’ (1990,8). This might be seen as ‘protest’ joyriding.
In an earlier post I talk about Greene’s suggestion that some young black men in New York/New Jersey were engaged in ‘protest joyriding’. One might argue that the specifics of Belfast during the Troubles meant that this too was a protest. That is the joyriders were taking on the authorities or the paramilitary forces. I would argue that both Greene’s and Belfast’s joyriders are still deeply conventional despite doing illegal and potentially dangerous things. Parker argued in his early study of joyriding in Liverpool that (Parker 1974b) "While joyriding is a delinquent action, it is motivated by respectable and conventional desires.” I concluded in my PhD from a green perspective that ‘Car use continues to be respectable and conventional but its taken-for-granted nature is now being contested’. That is the joyrider is presented as very different to the respectable owner driver but given the bad driving and ecological damage of that car use I see that as doing ideological work to bolster the current consumerist car culture.
Pascal Menoret seeks to argue that the joyriding he observed in Riyadh constituted a revolt but that can wait til another blog. Much of his ‘joyriding’ was ‘drifting’ in cars they or friends owned.
References
Kilpatrick, R., 1997. Joy-riding: An addictive behaviour. Hodge, J.E., McMurran, M. and Hollin, C.R (eds) Addicted to crime, pp.165-190.
McCullough D and Schmidt T (1990) 'Joyriding in West Belfast', in Car Theft in Northern Ireland., Recent Studies On a Persistent Problem CI RAC Paper no 2 Dave McCullough, Tanja Schmidt and Bill Lockhart Belfast: The Extern Organisation.
Mulcahy, A., 2013. Policing Northern Ireland. Routledge.
O'Docherty Malachi 4 April 1993 The Independent ‘It was one damn good car: In hospital after a kneecapping, and just before he died, Johnny McGivern wrote about his life, in stories introduced here by Malachi O’Doherty’ available at https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/it-was-one-damn-good-car-in-hospital-after-a-kneecapping-and-just-before-he-died-johnny-mcgivern-1453233.html accessed 16 May 2020.
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