BLACK
ACTIVISTS RISING AGAINST CUTS (BARAC) UK
British Black Communities face apartheid style policing
in England and Wales; Responding to Institutional Racism in policing
Introduction:
BARAC UK has issued this discussion paper to provide a clear
political focus in the national debate about stop and search and how we tackle
discriminatory, oppressive and racist policing.
We request that this paper is circulated widely and its contents
thoroughly debated. We welcome all responses.
In this paper we consciously use the term Police Force as
opposed to Police Service to reflect the calamitous changes in policing style
and community perception of policing. Over recent years there is a growing
animosity between black communities and the police. Racial profiling, deaths in
custody, police violence, corruption and police brutality are all issues of
acute concern.
As a result, increasing numbers of poor black, white and
Muslim communities perceive the police as a hostile occupying force, not as a
genuine non-discriminatory professional public service.
BARAC is independent and not funded by either local
authorities or the government. The State funding of organisations is an
important dynamic in holding back and restraining the debate on institutional racism
in policing however our independence is sacrosanct to ensuring we can
articulate radical solutions to the problems we face.
Tragically, far too many of Black, Asian and minority ethnic organisations have been reduced to reaming silence fearing for their
funding if they speak the truth. We suffer no such constraints.
Are we all equal before British law?
Human rights are based on core principles like dignity,
fairness, equality, respect and autonomy. BARAC believes that to protect your
rights and get fair and equal services from public authorities, political
campaigning is fundamental in seeking to preserve and advance all of our human
rights.
Equality before the law is one of the most fundamental of
universal human right concepts. That all citizens are equal before the law,
remains a central tenant of all modern democracies, the reality for poor Black
and Muslim citizenships, is that we are treated like third class citizens,
living in a largely theoretical first class democracy. Ethnicity remains a key
determinant of access to equality of opportunity, fair and equal treatment and
justice.
Britain has failed to tackle the perennial prejudice that
is a consequence of a society whose culture which is increasingly
discriminating against black people, women, the disabled, young and older
people, the poor and the vulnerable.
Racism in Britain today, continues to destroy lives,
leaving communities facing acute levels of economic exclusion, profound
injustice and as a result suffering deep alienation. English and Welsh Police
Forces have become the lead state agents in the continued illegal oppression of
Black and Muslim communities.
Such is the scale of the racism we face from Police
Forces that racism has become a way of life, industrial in scale, literally
damaging the lives of millions.
The acute crisis in relations between Black, Asian and
minority ethnic communities is nowhere more apparent than in the nation’s most
diverse city, London.
BARAC believes the overwhelming evidence of continued and
profound discrimination in the areas of policing and criminal justice requires
a determined legal human rights challenge and a radical political response
capable of delivering real change. This response cannot be led by politicians,
it must be led by democratically accountable, Black, Asian and minority ethnic
community based organisations.
Institutional racism in policing and criminal justice is
pernicious, toxic and out of control. The published data demonstrates clearly,
that in many major cities throughout England and Wales, Police Forces are in
the business of racially targeting Black and Muslim communities.
Such is the level of unchecked institutional racism, that
what we have in many cities in England and Wales, is apartheid style policing.
No doubt many liberals will think such a statement
exaggerated however we have overwhelming evidence of gross abuse, along side a
cannon of statistical and research data that presents a powerful, compelling
case for urgent and radical action.
Institutional racism produces apartheid policing.
Black, Asian and ethnic minority peoples are routinely
harassed, going about their lawful business on a daily basis, communities are
being criminalised wholesale. The police
disproportionately and routinely charge us for crimes, for which they caution
white people. The dispensation of justice in England and Wales today, has more
in common with the apartheid system of justice in South Africa or the Jim Crow
justice of the American South during the 1950s.
The incidence of suspicious deaths of Black men in police
custody, the recent inquest verdict into the shooting of Mark Duggan, the
ongoing scandal of stop and search, the fact that we suffer more injuries as a
result of violent arrests, the massively disproportionate use of tasers when
arresting black people, the use of the thoroughly discredited law of Joint
Enterprise, the experience of Black police officers suffering disproportionate
disciplinary actions and being denied promotion, the ideological hatred of
anti-racism by right wing Tories, the arrogance and complacency of politicians,
have all combined to end with Post McPherson détente or settlement.
Having forced the police and Government, as a result of
the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, to accept that institutional racism was real and
to take strong measures to eradicate, Black communities accepted that a career
as a police officer was something they could now positively consider. In
addition we began the process of working in partnership to tackle gun and knife
crime in our communities, all beneficial products of the post McPherson
settlement. Black recruitment rose
significantly and all over the country we formed crime reduction partnerships
to tackle serious violence in black communities.
That settlement, that had so much potential to deliver a
non-racist police service and much improved relations with black communities,
no longer exists. Its dead, the détente is over and the police have resumed
hostilities and the large scale oppression of Black and Muslim communities. In
short, the police freed from what they saw as the ‘restraints’ imposed by
McPherson’s anti-racist policies have returned to their organisational cultural
default setting, institutional racism.
We have been betrayed and abused.
Today, Black communities betrayed by politicians of all
parties, battered by institutional racism in policing and criminal justice
systems, have returned to the perspective that the police represent an
oppressive army of occupation.
As the Coalition Government and the Mayor of London,
Boris Johnson, led the political attack and abandoned all serious political
commitment to monitoring and implementing the recommendations of the McPherson
report, two things have happened;
1. The police
immediately jettisoned the term ‘institutional racism’ and with it went their
commitment to anti-racism.
2. Over the
last five years, police racism has returned with bloody vengeance.
The level of open resistance and hostility, from senior
police officers and this Coalition government toward any sensible political or
policy discussion to redress this awful state of affairs is palpable. The
Association of Police Officers, (ACPO), the Metropolitan Police Force, both New
Labour and later the Tory party’s rank and files’ revulsion of all things
McPherson, first undermined, then slowed down, then killed off and finally
reversed any and all previous momentum gained in tackling police racism.
What to do about police racism?
BARAC’s view is that nothing less than an all-out, board
based, major escalation of a national community led campaign against police
racism stands any chance of forcing Government, Chief Constables, the Mayor of
London and Police and Crime Commissioners to the negotiating table.
Refusal to acknowledge the reality of institutional
racism results in cosmetic palliative measures being adopted where radical
surgery is required. Incorrect diagnosis of the problem or acute denial can
only further aggravate and inflame relations. BARAC does not believe that
rioting can in anyway help deal with this political issue.
As we have seen in the aftermath of 2011 the State uses
such outburst to then severely punish in the courts entire communities and
further equip the police with more weapons increasing the worryingly trend of
offensive militarisation .
Call a national boycott.
The time is right to maximise political pressure on
Government in the run up to local elections in May 2014 and the forthcoming
general election a year later. Here we explain our position that only by
calling a national boycott of all black police recruitment and the withdrawal
of all but the most urgent and essential contact with the police, will result
in real change.
The evidence of racism is overwhelming and compelling.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate Constabularies report
published in July 2009 reported that Stop and Search was both ‘intrusive and
contentious’ threatening to undermined the legitimacy of the police. The report
also concluded that 30 of the 43 forces in England and Wales have no idea how
to use the power nor are they aware of the negative impact on communities. They also found that 27% of these stops were
in fact unlawful.
In January 2012 we saw Stuart Lawrence, brother of
Stephen, complain of being consistently targeted by Met officers for no other
reason than the colour of his skin. In March the same year, a Met police
officer was recorded telling a black youth ’you’re problem is you’ll always be
a n****r'. At a subsequent criminal
trial, the police officer was remarkably acquitted by a jury of using racist
abusive language.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission revealed
that in a two month period in 2013 it received over 50 race complaints alone.
Let’s remember, these are recorded complaints that are dwarfed by the mountain
of unreported police racism incidents that occurs on a daily basis by a
community that has lost faith in making any complaints about police racism.
The famous spoken word poet Lemn Sissay wrote
passionately and with conviction about having been stopped over 50 times and
the anger and frustration such encounters breed. October 2013 saw the arrest of famous British
actor Daniel Kaluuya, 24, who is currently suing the Metropolitan Police for
assault and false imprisonment after he was wrongly suspected of being a drug
dealer.
Stop & search reform: A national scandal.
The planned reform of Stop and Search powers announced by
the Home Secretary in July 2013 was a cynical attempt at creating the
impression that Government really cared about racism. When in fact, the
announcement was timed to deflect
attention and dampen anger at the revelation by a former undercover officer
Peter Francis that on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Force had participated
in a covert police operation to ‘spy’ and ‘smear’ Stephen Lawrence’s family, friends and
supporters.
The recent debate in Government about stop and search is
interesting. The idea that the Prime Minster and the Home Secretary are at
‘war’ over Theresa May’s planned reform of the power, is laughable.
The reality of what’s going on is somewhat different for
those whose liberty depends on the outcome of such debates. Closer scrutiny
reveals this ‘tiff’ amounts to a pre-planned squabble, nothing more than a
carefully rehearsed, choreographed, manufactured argument, designed to appease
angry black voters. It’s the political equivalent of smoke and mirrors.
Close examination reveals the Home Secretary’s actual
response to the summer consultation on this issue. What Theresa May has done is
talk tough in public on this issue but in reality delivered nothing more than a
conveniently timed punch up with the PM.
May has carefully dropped any plans to reform PACE stop
and searches and concentrated her efforts solely on reforming Section 60 stops.
Nice sleight of hand because these stops constitute only a tiny fraction of the
overall number PACE stops and searches taking place.
Whatever the manufactured debate between N0 10 and the
Home Office, the crisis of confidence can’t be fixed by a quick sound bite. In
recent years Black people in Britain have been subjected to the single most
sustained and targeted campaign of police harassment ever seen in Britain.
The Police power of stop and search results in the mass
criminalisation of Black, Asian and ethnic minority people.
A quick look at the figures for Stop & Search since
1998 (the year before the publication of the McPherson report), saw these
figures rising from 100,000 per year in 1998 to a staggering 1.1 million in
2012.
The most devastating report to be published in 2013 with
a focus on police racism is the Release Report : The Numbers in Black &
White Ethnic Disparities in Policing and Prosecution of Drug Offences In
England & Wales.
The report makes compelling and frightening reading. What
the report details, is the inescapable facts that prove, beyond reasonable
doubt, that stop and search focusing on drug possession and driven by the
existence of police targets has led to the mass criminalisation of literally
hundreds of thousands of Black and Asian young people England and Wales is
unduly focused on black and minority communities.
This report looks at racial disparity rates of stop and
search, arrest, prosecution and sentencing and clearly demonstrates that the
drug laws in the UK are a major driver of the disproportionality that exists in
our criminal justice system in relation to the black community.
Its findings provide the most conclusive and irrefutable,
evidence that racism is driving the wholesale, mass criminalisation of black
communities in Britain. The arbitrary and racist use of this power has resulted
in over 77% of black men between the ages of 15 -34 having their DNA on the police
national database.
The conclusion we draw from this evidence is that the
Metropolitan Police’s war against drugs, is in fact, a de facto war against
black people with the aim of criminalizing entire communities. This has
produced what can only be described, given its scale and intensity as apartheid
style policing in London.
Stop and search is the police operation tool, or dragnet,
which sweeps up and feeds our young black people into an institutionalized and
racist criminal justice system, where on average black people receive 20%
longer sentence than a white person convicted of the same crime, with a much
longer criminal record.
The research shows that a black person arrested for
drugs, with a small amount of previous convictions, unbelievably still receives
a longer prison sentence, than white criminals arrested for drugs, who have
much more extensive criminal records.
Another important publication is the bi annual report,
Ministry of Justice on Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2012
found that nationally the use of Stop and Search has increased by 7% since
2010.
This latest report shows, that in the five years from
2008 to 2012, a massive 814,000 Black people have been subjected to this
dragnet power, 523,000 Asians and 158,000 people of mixed heritage. That is a
staggering 1.5m Black and minority ethnic peoples who have been subjected to
the use of this power.
In terms of arrest Black people are no more likely to be
arrested than whites and this means that over 1 million Black, Asian and
minority ethnic people were subjected to arbitrary, probably illegal and racist
use of the power. That industrial scale equals institutional racism.
Recent revelations by the Sunday Mirror reporter Justin
Penrose, indicate Metropolitan Police
Officers are being told they have to use the power at least 15 times a month or
face disciplinary action. Evidence that targets are driving police racism in
stop and search and arrest rates can also be found in the Release Report that
confirmed the existence of these deeply worrying targets despite the
Metropolitan Police Force’s trenchant denials.
In the current climate where issues of Plebgate, Duggan,
spying on the Lawrence’s and spying on and infiltration of anti –racist groups,
Levenson and undercover police officers like Mark Kennedy, the Police are
increasingly and routinely disbelieved.
We do not believe that Stop and Search figures are coming
down as recently suggested by the Metropolitan (Met) Police Force. The reality
is more people are being stopped but no stop slips are being offered. If we can
not believe the Met’s own crime figures as recent admissions have shown then
why should we believe their figures on stop and search.
Why is this all happening now?
The real reason for this explosion in state sanctioned
racism is the historical failure of New Labour to support the long term drive
to tackle police racism and today the deeply ideological driven political
attack on the concepts of multiculturalism, anti-racism and institutional
racism by the Conservative Party. The intent is classic Toryism designed to
distract the public’s attention away from the architects of our economic
crisis, greedy bankers and one way of doing that is to significantly ramp up
racism.
BARAC argues that we now need to boycott any Constabulary
that does not fully accept that reality of institutional racism and / or
refuses to work in partnership with communities to rid themselves of this
disease. Partnership in this context means genuine accountable representation
from communities, not unaccountable, handpicked police candidates.
This demand must be elevated to a national priority if we
are to stem the precipitous political decline of the priority accorded to
equality and anti-racism on Government and elsewhere.
BARAC calls for organisations and individuals to discuss
and hopefully endorse the following urgent demands;
• BARAC asks
that organisations register their
support for our efforts to challenge Government indifference to the racism
we face.
• To end all
non-essential contact with all Police Forces in England and Wales that do not,
publicly and formally accept that they are an institutional racist
organisation.
• To call a
national boycott of all black police recruitment to the police until such time
that institutional racism is taken seriously and real steps are taken to act to
eradicate it.
• To hold to
account and challenge any one individual or organisation that seeks to work
with the police whilst they refuse to accept the reality of institutional
racism.
•
BARAC believes tactically, it is better to institute a
national boycott now rather than allow frustrations to continue to build and
then deal with the consequences of riots later. Such a boycott can only be
achieved with broad based support from individuals, businesses, community
organisations, faith groups, trade unions and the wider labour movement. All
are negatively affected by civil disturbances and all should support any
proposal that is capable of averting an explosion of violence on our streets.
BARAC in partnership with a range of other campaigning
organisations will be calling a national summit on racism in the criminal
justice system.
We urge you to debate these issues using the boycott
proposal to stimulate debate. BARAC is happy to provide speakers in support of
our proposal.
Please send your responses, enquiries and statements of
support for this paper, or if you are keen to be involved in the planning of
our national summit please email us at barac.info.gmail.com
We would ask that you sign up in support of these demands
and publicise in your local area. Further we ask that you join BARAC Facebook
and follow us on our twitterfeed @BARACUK
Black
Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK
National
Co-Chairs: Lee Jasper & Zita Holbourne
