Author Topic: Black People 27 Times More Likely To Be Stopped (Read 218 times)

Damon X Reppin ATL · « **on:** April 21, 2003, 08:56:20 AM »

Black people 27 times more likely to be stopped

Vikram Dodd
Monday April 21, 2003
The Guardian

Afro-Caribbean people are more than 27 times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched under a special police power designed to tackle ravers and football hooligans, according to research seen by the Guardian.

The use of the power has increased dramatically, and it has been branded "a new sus law", a reference to hated police powers used in the 1970s to target black people without reason.

The power allows stop and searches without an officer having reasonable grounds of suspicion. It is contained under section 60 of the Crime, Justice and Public Order Act 1994, and was introduced by the Tory home secretary, Michael Howard, to tackle noisy ravers and football hooligans, who are mostly white.

As tomorrow's 10th anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence focuses attention on policing and race, a leading academic says the findings show increased police discrimination when officers operate with little legal constraint and do not have to justify their actions.

The level of the disproportionate use of section 60 powers against ethnic minority people is even higher than for the more commonly used search powers governed by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace). For the latter, police need to have reasonable suspicion and Afro-Caribbean people are eight times more likely to be stopped under Pace.

The section 60 power is supposed to be used in only limited circumstances, and allows police to stop people if they believe there is a serious risk of violence.

According to research by the criminologist Ben Bowling, the power is 18 times more likely to be used against Asians than whites, and 27.5 times more likely to be used against Afro-Caribbeans.

The Home Office said it knew of no research into the use of the power.

Professor Bowling, of King's College, London, said his find ings show what police will do when they have the least guidelines and scrutiny. "Wherever officers have the broadest discretion is where you find the greatest disproportionality and discrimination.

"Under section 60, police have the widest discretion, using their own beliefs about who is involved in crime, using their own stereotypes about who's worth stopping, that's where the problems in police culture affect the decisions that are taken."

In London, its usage more than doubled between 2000/1 to 2001/2 to 6,000 cases. The Metropolitan police stopped more Asian people than white people, despite there being fewer of them in the population, and nearly as many Afro-Caribbean people as white people.

West Midlands police used the power 5,520 times, almost as much as the Met, despite policing a smaller population.

Prof Bowling said: "A power that was intended for narrow purposes is being used much more extensively against black and Asian communities. It's a way of getting around the tougher controls on stop and search introduced after the Macpherson report."

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the commission for racial equality, has already threatened legal action against the police over the disproportionate use against black and Asian people of stops under Pace.

Mr Phillips said of section 60: "The disproportionality is astonishing and these figures demand explanation. The police need to be transparent about why these powers are being used in this way.

"No one should pretend it's an accident, it's by design. It may have reasons, but they need to be explained."

Lee Jasper, adviser on policing to London mayor Ken Livingstone, said section 60 was fast becoming as abused as the "sus" laws of the 1970s which led to black and Asian people being stopped without suspicion. Scotland Yard did not comment when asked.

Now_Im_Not_Banned · « **Reply #1 on:** April 21, 2003, 05:52:47 PM »

Black people 27 Thousand times more likely to rob you...

pappy · « **Reply #2 on:** April 21, 2003, 05:53:53 PM »

yea but isnt it tru that there have been a lot of blacks that got pulled over without reason. It turned out that the had drugs on them or a concealed weapon

SpecialSam · « **Reply #3 on:** April 21, 2003, 06:13:34 PM »

yea man its fucked up white people r fuckin racist man the mail guy when he brings mail to my house he just throws it and to everybody else he like puts it in all slow n shit what the fuck is that man pisses me off and my dad had to money when he got in a car accident jus cuz the other person was white i think my dad hit his car but even if he didnt and the other car hit him my dad woulda still had to pay!!!!....peace

TheSheriff · « **Reply #4 on:** April 21, 2003, 07:30:50 PM »

Interesting article, but beating a dead horse

7even · « **Reply #5 on:** April 21, 2003, 07:59:12 PM »

Quote

my dad had to money when he got in a car accident jus cuz the other person was white i think my dad hit his car but even if he didnt and the other car hit him my dad woulda still had to pay!!!

rofl