Transcript Policing & Police Powers

POLICING, “RACE” AND
RACISM
REBEKAH DELSOL AND MICHAEL SHINER
KEY READING
Bowling, B., and Phillips, C. (2007) ‘Disproportionate and
Discriminatory: Reviewing the Evidence on Police Stop and
Search’, The Modern Law Review, 70(6): 936-961
Delsol, R. and Shiner, M. (2006) ‘Regulating Stop ad
Search: A Challenge for Police and Community Relations
in England and Wales’, Critical Criminology, 14:241-263
Lea, J. (2000) ‘The Macpherson Report and the Question of
Institutional Racism’, The Howard Journal, 39(3): 219-233
Sanders, A., and Young, R. (2006) Criminal Justice,
Oxford University Press
Reiner, R (2000) The Politics of the Police, Oxford University
Press
Rowe, M. (2007) Policing Beyond Macpherson: Issues in
Policing, Race and Society, Willan
POLICING AND PUBLIC DISORDER
A 'SORT OF REVENGE' AGAINST
THE POLICE
85% of respondents to Reading the Riots study said
policing was an "important" or "very important"
factor in why the riots happened
Again and again, rioters from different parts of the
country described the police as a "gang”
Shooting of Mark Duggan resonates with more
mundane, routine abuse of police powers
www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/05/riots-revenge-against-police
PROFILES OF THE PROFILED
WWW.STOP-WATCH.ORG/
NEWS-EVENTS/25/PROFILESOF-THE-PROFILED.HTML
POLICING AND THE
LEGITIMATE USE OF FORCE
“The only reason to maintain police in modern society is to make
available a group of persons with a virtually unrestricted right to
use violent and, when necessary, lethal means to bring certain
types of situations under control. That fact is as fundamentally
offensive to core values of modern society as it is unchangeable.
To reconcile itself to its police, modern society must wrap it in
concealments and circumlocutions that sponsor the appearance
that the police are either something other than what they are or
are principally engaged in doing something else… To the extent
that these circumlocutions worked, they worked by wrapping
police in aspirations and values that are extremely powerful and
unquestionably good”
Klockars, C.B. (1988) ‘The Rhetoric of Community Policing’, in J.R. Greene and S.
Mastrofski (eds) Community Policing: Rhetoric or Reality?, Praeger, reprinted in T.
Newburn (2005) Policing: Key Readings, Willan
PROCEDURAL JUSTICE
AND LEGITIMACY
“If people perceive the police to be procedurally fair and if they
trust their motives in behaving the way that they do, all current
evidence suggest they are not only more likely to actively
cooperate by reporting crime, cooperating in investigations,
providing witness evidence, even intervening in situations of
low-level deviance and incivility. They are also more likely to
defer to officer’s instructions and obey the laws that the police in
many ways still embody. In the long run, the fight against crime
might be more efficiently, more cost-effectively, and certainly
more ethically served by treating the public with fairness, dignity,
and respect than by instigating another ‘crack-down’ on crime”.
Jackson, J., and Bradford, B. (2010) ‘What is Trust and Confidence in the Police?’,
Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 4(3): 241-248.
Bradford, B. (2011) Assessing the Impact of Police-initiated Stop Powers on
Individuals and Communities: the UK Picture
www.jjay.cuny.edu/centers/race_crime_justice/4788.php
STAFFORD SCOTT
WWW.GUARDIAN.CO.UK/COMMENTISFREE/2011/OCT/16/VOICESTOTTENHAM-MARGINALISED?NEWSFEED=TRUE
Martin Luther King once said that riots gave a voice to the
voiceless; but the voices of those who felt moved to take to the
streets in August are still very much unheard. The lessons from
the 80s should tell us that ignoring them will come at a cost.
These people are the "already marginalised", or the offspring of
the "already marginalised": the ones who were excluded from
school in disproportionate numbers; who were arrested and
convicted under "sus" laws in disproportionate numbers; who
are being stopped and searched in disproportionate numbers.
They see themselves as victims too: to further marginalise them
will only make them feel squeezed between a rock and an even
harder place. As far as they are concerned, they are being left
with no alternative but to lash out.
FROM RESPECTABLE CITIZENS
TO ‘FOLK DEVILS’
OVER-POLICED AND
UNDER-PROTECTED
POLICING AGAINST BLACK PEOPLE
INSTITUTE OF RACE RELATIONS, 1987: 1
As we pointed out to the Royal Commission on Criminal
Procedure in 1979, throughout the 1970s a consistent
pattern had developed of police overmanning of black
events, police raids on black clubs and meeting places,
and police concentration in predominantly black
localities. Since then this pattern of overpolicing appears
to have continued and intensified through a variety of
measures: mass ‘stop-and-search’ operations in black
areas; large-scale and coordinated raids on black homes
and meeting places; routine patrolling of the inner city
with riot squads (with the threat, held in reserve, of
plastic bullets, CS gas and other such weapons for any
serious outbreak of disorder), all underpinned at one
level
by
continuous
intelligence-gathering
and
surveillance, and at another by skilful use of the tabloid
press to convey the police view to the wider public.
THE SCARMAN REPORT
POLICING BY CONSENT
REGULATION OF STOP
AND SEARCH
Complaints procedure
PACE, 1984 – Code A
Reasonable suspicion
The recording criterion
REASONABLE SUSPICION
WWW.HOMEOFFICE.GOV.UK/PUBLICATIONS/POLICE/OPERATIONAL-POLICING/PACECODES/PACE-CODE-A?VIEW=BINARY
Reasonable grounds for suspicion depend on the
circumstances in each case. There must be an objective
basis for that suspicion based on facts, information,
and/or intelligence which are relevant to the likelihood of
finding an article of a certain kind…Reasonable suspicion
can never be supported on the basis of personal factors.
It must rely on intelligence or information about, or some
specific behaviour by, the person concerned. For example,
other than in a witness description of a suspect, a
person’s race, age, appearance, or the fact that the person
is known to have a previous conviction, cannot be used
alone or in combination with each other, or in combination
with any other factor, as the reason for searching that
person. Reasonable suspicion cannot be based on
generalisations or stereotypical images of certain groups
or categories of people as more likely to be involved in
criminal activity. A person’s religion cannot be considered
as reasonable grounds for suspicion and should never be
considered as a reason to stop or stop and search an
individual.
EXCEPTIONAL POWERS THAT DON’T
REQUIRE REASONABLE SUSPICION
Section 60, Criminal Justice and Public Order Act
1994
 www.runnymedetrust.org/events-conferences/econferences/ethnic-profiling-inuk-law-enforcement/the-report/young-people-and-section-60/section-60-stopand-search-powers.html
Section 44 and 47A, Terrorism Act 2000
Gillan and Quinton vs. uk www.ucc.ie/law/blogs/ccjhr/2010/01/gillanquinton-v-uk-ecthr-rules-uk.html
 www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/28/terrorism-police-stop-search-arrests.
Schedule 7, Terrorism Act 2000
 www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/may/26/terrorismact-schedule-7
STEPHEN LAWRENCE
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM,
LAWRENCE INQUIRY
The collective failure of an organisation to
provide an appropriate and professional service
to people because of their colour, culture or
ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in
processes, attitudes, and behaviour which
amount to discrimination through unwitting
prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and
racist
stereotyping which disadvantages
minority ethnic people.
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM
/CONT.
Investigation was marred “by a combination of
professional incompetence, institutional racism and a
failure of leadership by senior officers”(para 46.1)
Symptomatic of broader problem of institutional racism,
which exists “both in the Metropolitan Police Service and
in other Police Services and other institutions
countrywide” (para 6.39)
“We hope and believe that the average police officer and
average member of the public will accept that we do not
suggest that all police officers are racist and will both
understand and accept the distinction we draw between
overt individual racism and the pernicious and persistent
institutional racism which we have described’”(para 6.46)
Police stops and Recommendation 61
STOP AND SEARCH, SECTION 1 PACE
ETC., ENGLAND AND WALES, 2009/10
Stop searches per
Disproportionality
1,000 of population
White
Black
Asian
Mixed
Chinese/Other
18
126
40
50
18
7.0
2.2
2.8
1.0
Ministry of justice (2011) Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice
System – 2009/10, London: Ministry of justice
http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/statistics-and-data/criminal-justice/race.htm
EXPLAINING
DISPROPORTIONALITY?
Benchmarking - available populations
 Waddington, et al., ‘In Proportion: Race, and Police Stop and Search’, British Journal of
Criminology, 44(6): 889-914
Reliability of records – back covering
Black criminality
But, what about stop and account?
In 2008/9, disproportionality:




2.8 (Black)
1.4 (Asian)
1.8 (Mixed)
0.8 (Other)
THE FAILURE OF REGULATION
Since the introduction of PACE
 Massive increase in use of stop and search
 Reduction in the arrest rate
 Ongoing problem of disproportionality
 Growth of exceptional powers
Limited impact of the Lawrence Inquiry
 Foster, J., Newburn, T., and Souhami, A. (2005) Assessing the Impact of the
Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, London: Home Office
 Shiner, M. (2010) ‘Post-Lawrence Policing in England and Wales: Guilt, Innocence
and the Defence of Organisational Ego’, British Journal of Criminology, 50(5): 935953
WHAT’S CHANGED?
“The blunt reality, more than a decade after
Macpherson and several years after the reforms
were implemented, is that aggregate- measured
levels of disproportionality for grounds-based
searches have not improved. Moreover compared
to the later 1990s, the situation has become worse
for black and Asian people. The relative chances
of people in these groups being searched,
compared to whites have apparently increased.”
Miller, J. (2010) ‘Stop and Search in England and Wales: A Reformed Tactic or
Business as Usual? British Journal of Criminology, 50(5): 954-974.
NUMBER OF S.60 SEARCHES PER 1,000
POPULATION – ENGLAND & WALES
SECTION 60 ARRESTS ETC.
Total searches
(n)
Persons found carrying
weapons etc. (%)
Arrests weapons (%)
Arrests other (%)
Arrests –
total (%)
2000/01
11,330
3.2
2.7
3.6
6.4
2001/02
18,900
7.2
1.1
2.6
3.6
2002/03
44,400
3.5
0.8
4.8
5.6
2003/04
40,400
1.4
0.7
3.1
3.8
2004/05
41,600
0.7
0.6
2.3
2.9
2005/06
36,300
1.5
0.5
4.2
4.7
2006/07
44,700
1.6
0.6
3.1
3.6
2007/08
53,319
1.4
0.6
3.3
3.9
2008/09
150,172
0.8
0.4
2.5
2.9
2009/10
118,446
0.7
0.3
2.1
2.4
Povey, D. et al., (2011) Police Powers and Procedures England and Wales 2009/10, London: Home Office
BACKLASH
Abolition of requirement to record stop and account
Reduced requirements for recording of stop and
search
“Anybody who had read the Macpherson report would
recognise an institution that was treating people in a very
monochrome way. I don’t necessarily believe there was
anything racist about the activities of the Metropolitan police
in relation to the Lawrences. What the investigators did was
they treated the Lawrence’s as they treated a whole range of
working-class people and they just did not understand the
expectations and experiences of the black community. That
is what has changed.”
Sir Ian Blair (April 2009)
Research
and policy
Political advocacy
Awareness raising
Research and policy
Good practice
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Youth
Voices of experience
Awareness raising
Social media
Empowering youth
Legal
Legal challenges
Know your rights
Individual complaints
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