Despite the fact that the Provisional IRA has largely disbanded, Irish republican dissident groups and loyalist paramilitaries are still a criminal and ominous presence in many parts of Northern Ireland. Colm Walsh, an academic at Queen’s University, has researched paramilitaries and criminal exploitation and has noted that groups like the New IRA, the UVF, and the UDA still have a negative impact on young people in their communities. Although Northern Ireland has transformed greatly since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998, recent incidents like the attack on police vehicles on the Creggan estate in Londonderry highlight the fact that young people are being manipulated into engaging in violence by these groups. Walsh notes that all former paramilitary groups are now involved in criminal activities such as drug dealing, extortion, violence towards their own communities, and other control and coercion tactics. While the situation in Northern Ireland is better than it was in the past, an underbelly of harm still exists in some communities that is perpetuated by these paramilitary groups. This harm becomes more acute during feuds between different factions, such as the feud between the UDA and the recent Newtownards disturbances, or when groups like the New IRA are implicated in shootings of police officers. To address this issue, the Northern Ireland government’s Department of Justice has launched a program aimed at tackling paramilitary groups and organized crime in the six counties, and Walsh believes that this initiative is necessary now more than ever, as the paramilitary groups seek to manipulate young people into continuing their violent activities.