As the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) strives to gain widespread community support it is glaringly obvious that republican and loyalist paramilitary groups still believe that it is their "policing" writ that must apply, particularly in working class areas.
Each year the IRA and the INLA and the UVF and the UDA and other paramilitaries order hundreds of individuals and families from their homes, according to the Base 2 organisation. This has earned them the title of the exiled. Nobody knows for sure but it is estimated that there could be several hundred people, and possibly more, living outside Northern Ireland who are afraid to come home because of such threats.
The latest figures from Base 2, illustrating a continuing sharp increase in the level of paramilitary threat, graphically prove that the transition to a relatively peaceful and normal society in Northern Ireland still has a long way to run.
Base 2 was established in 1990 by the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NIACRO) to provide a crisis intervention service for individuals and families under threat in Northern Ireland. In its initial years it handled about 200 cases each year and after the cessations there was a public assumption that its workload would reduce.
Instead, the number of victims it supported rose annually and alarmingly and appears to be still rising. Last year it handled 906 referrals. All paramilitary organisations are allegedly involved, according to Base 2, including the Official IRA, which was thought be to virtually defunct.
In 1995, the year after the cessations, Base 2 dealt with 224 cases. That increased to 646 three years later, to 854 two years ago and the highest total so far, 906, last year. And already Base 2 is on course to handle even more cases this year.
Base 2 has established credibility both with the victims and with the organisations and individuals such as social services, the Housing Executive, the Probation Board, clergy and voluntary agencies which refer those under threat to the body.
It has also established credibility with the paramilitaries themselves. A quiet networking is done with each referral. Base 2 case-workers, through various forms of indirect confidential contact, establish with the Provisional IRA or INLA or UVF or UDA or other bodies whether particular individuals are truly under threat from them.
Most of the threats or attacks or expulsions happen in the greater Belfast area but victims come from all over the North. This is a widespread social problem. The figures for places such as Lisburn, Antrim, Newtownards, Derry, Bangor and Portadown are also high.
The reasons for the threat are varied, with anti-social behaviour and alleged drug-dealing the main categories. People are also threatened or forced from their homes for alleged activity such as informing against paramilitaries, sex offences, burglary, assault and car theft.
Last year threats relating to anti-social behaviour, "joyriding" and drugs accounted for 468 of the referrals, more than half of all cases.
Base 2's workload has also increased as a result of individuals and families being threatened mainly by the UDA for failing to meet huge money-lending repayments. In some cases interest on repayments can be as high 25 per cent per week, said one community activist. Last year 19 people were threatened under this heading - 20 were threatened the year before.
Last year republicans and loyalists warned 49 people that they would kill them - the previous year they issued such threats to 69 people. Last year 683 were warned to leave their communities. Of these 451 complied by leaving their areas, while 39 took the threats so seriously as to leave Northern Ireland. In 2000 57 people left the North.
The past two years have seen a shift in the groupings chiefly responsible for the threats. From 1990, when Base 2 was formed, until 1999 the ratio of republican to loyalist threats was 60:40. In 2000 there was a switch in trend with loyalists responsible for 59 per cent of threats, republicans for 38 per cent, and the other cases coming from non-paramilitary "community" groups.
Last year loyalists accounted for 64 per cent of threats, republicans for 32 per cent and, again, the remainder from "community" groups.
Base 2 believes it is having some success in reducing the number of people being forced abroad, but a fundamental stubborn social problem is that in many working class loyalist and republican areas many people would rather go to the paramilitaries than the police when they have been victims of crime.
"We would love to see the demise of Base 2," said a NIACRO spokesman.
"We are opposed to paramilitary policing with its coercive elements such as beatings, shootings, exile and killings. But before our work can come to an end society here has to establish consensual policing."
He added that NIACRO badly needed extra funding to continue its Base 2 work.