As reported on Newsline today, a report by the Office of the Oversight Commissioner on police reform has concluded that the Patten changes are working.

• There are twice as many Catholic recruits in the police service as there were in 1999 (now 18%)
• No plastic bullets have been fired since September 2002
• On average each officer takes less sick leave per year; down from an average of 23.5 days in 2001/2 to 17 days in 2004/5
• Of Patten's 175 recommendations, 114 recommendations have been completely implemented, leaving only 61 to be completed.
• The proposed changes to Special Branch have mostly been accomplished

Not mentioned in the report but also significant is that in 2001, the USA lifted a ban on the FBI training with the police in Northern Ireland.

Follow up:

The position of Oversight Commissioner (currently held by Al Hutchinson, a former member of the RCMP) was itself one of the recommendations of the Patten Report.

Some of the changes in the police service here were a bitter pill to swallow. The name/insignia change from the Royal Ulster Constabulary, a name under which many brave men served their country in the most dangerous of environs, to the PSNI and the discriminatory 50/50 recruitment rules were particularly difficult. From the sounds of it though, real progress is being made. Even from my own experience of speaking to ordinary Catholics it would seem that the police are increasingly becoming accepted as a legitimate force among nationalists.

The report did say that work needs to be done on the visual appearance of police stations, like Musgrave for example. It claimed that the "threat or perception of intimidation remains a barrier to ensuring that the Police Service is as representative of the wider population as it could be."

Citing the impressive progress that has been made, the Oversight Commissioner also called for wider political and community support for the PSNI. This seems a clear call to Sinn Fein to get off the backs of the men and women risking their safety to keep Northern Ireland crime free and give them a fair run for a change. Of course if your own military branch is repsonsible for a considerable chunk of the crime they're trying to tackle then you've little incentive to support the police, but the IRA/Sinn Fein can only continue riding 2 horses for so long.

Update
Slugger O'Toole has also just published a post on this story highlighting that the main factor holding up further Catholic recruitment is 'fear of intimidation' (presumably from Republicans). Come on Gerry. Give the people what they want.