ABSTRACT
The British government gave priority to a political settlement as a means of ending the conflict. Internment loomed large in the many obstacles that lay across the path to peace. Successive reviews reduced numbers, but a new type of calculus took hold. The logic of filtration meant that at any point remaining internees were by definition greater risks than those who had been released. Systematic and widespread intimidation and unwillingness to cooperate largely nullified the ordinary criminal process. Political violence continued, and the secretary of state had to replenish the numbers in internment (unavailingly renamed “interim custody”). IRA resistance blocked the review process through which government had hoped safely to reduce numbers of detainees. Prison riots and disorders and their suppression immobilised the political process. A juryless court was introduced to bypass the conventional criminal process for scheduled offences. Executive detention was eventually abandoned, political necessity trumping immediate security issues.
