From Conflict to Connection: Examining the use of sport as a mechanism for cross-community engagement and youth crime prevention in Northern Ireland

Sport is often promoted as a vehicle through which a variety of social policy outcomes can be achieved, one of the most common of which is the prevention of crime amongst marginalised and disadvantaged youth populations. However, some scholars have questioned the potential of sport-based interventions to act as a ‘panacea’ for such social ills and have called for more nuanced research that examines the mechanisms within these programmes that may enable positive outcomes. Drawing upon research findings from a study of one sport-based intervention that aims to prevent young people from engaging with paramilitary or criminal networks in Northern Ireland, this paper seeks to examine some of the key mechanisms within such interventions that may alleviate the propensity for young people to become involved in paramilitary and/or criminal activity. In doing so, the paper seeks to reveal how sport may be used for ‘good’ within diversion/prevention strategies, highlighting how those involved in the operationalisation of sport-based interventions are critical to the harnessing of ‘the power of sport’ in terms of social integration.