In order to make it appear that the IRA was simply a criminal organisation, and to allay Unionist and Tory backbench anger at the prisoner-of-war status enjoyed by Special Category prisoners, the British throughout the 1975–6 period also began developing what became known as the ‘criminalisation policy’. This was paralleled by the ‘Ulsterisation’ and ‘normalisation’ approaches. Under Ulsterisation, security was progressively handed over to the RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment in a Six County version of what the Americans used to refer to during the Vietnam War as ‘Vietnamisation’: in other
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