Thursday 14 June 2012

Met racism review should include stop and search

Research by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has shown that the Metropolitan Police Service are 11 times more likely to stop and search black people than white people. The research looked at the powers used under section 60 of the 1994 Public Order Act, which does not require suspicion of involvement in crime. 
 
The EHRC found that in 2010-11, the Metropolitan Police stopped 32.8 out of every 1,000 black people in its area. The figures also show section 60 may be ineffective in fighting crime. According to the report in England as a whole 2.3% of section 60 stop and searches resulted in an arrest in 2010-11.
 
Responding to the research Green Party Assembly Member Jenny Jones  said: 
 
This research shows black youth are being disproportionately targeted with stop and search. It’s no wonder some communities feel over policed and under protected when they are targeted in this way. The Met has to stop the amount of wasteful stop and searches it currently carries out. It’s alienating communities and has a poor arrest rate for the damage it does.
 
The Met need to act on the findings of this research to address the problems of disproportionality in section 60 stop and searches now, or face losing this power. The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime should widen its review into racism within the Met to include the ongoing problem of disproportionality with stop and search.

1 comment:

bigbreadeaterellis said...

how many of us would be willing to eat rotten fruit or mouldy bread?
it's human nature to judge things by appearance but it is inhuman to judge according to race and treat one another unjustly due to a dislike of people of a certain race.
nevertheless just like swearing is a common negative human trait, treating each other badly especially if we dislike or distrust people of another race is very common.
however just as people that choose to become Christians are obliged to put on the new Christian personality which treats everyone fair regardless of race, the police are expected to adhere to Christian principles if you like.
and when they do so it is so much better than to go around with a bad and inhuman unchristian attitude.
it is oh so important to remember that being of a certain race does not determine what one decides to do and how one chooses to conduct themselves once they are old enough to start making their own decisions.
we ought to remember that the heart plays a major part in the decisions we make in life.
if we allow our hearts to desire bad things we will likely end up doing bad things.
it is also wrong for the police to go around targeting black youths when the reality is that we live in a society in which our government that is made up of mainly white people continue to allow smoking to be legal in this country which according to one website I viewed recently causes @ least 30,000 or more people of all races to die.
what does that show?
well it shows me that if the police actually believe that black people tend to be bad more than any other race, they are clearly deluded.
there are more bad people in government than anywhere else in human society.
after all it is they that legalized smoking that has caused so much premature death and unnecessary suffering.
black youths can be bad in their own way, but what they do on whole is not as bad as what the government has done and continues to do.
so to go back to what I said @ the start of my post, humans judge by appearance...if food is mouldy we tend to reject it...and for good reason...after all eating mouldy food will not only taste unpleasant but will more than likely make us ill after.
well think about this...having bad people governing the country we live in also causes great and immense suffering...take the time to look online and see how many people died in the past year from smoking and you cannot disagree that a government that betrays the people it is meant to be serving and puts profit before principle...they are the ones that should be stopped and searched on a daily basis...our government may be elected democratically but that does not mean they are good.
however, if you have a government and it actually puts principle before profit, by its actions we can conclude that it is good.
therefore if I were to compare the government to fruit I would have to realistically compare them to rotten fruit simply because what they do shows what is in their heart.
look what their hearts desire for money has done to human society.
it has caused them to allow one people to exploit another in order to turn them into tobacco addicts and they do that simply because they love money more than anything else.
this is why I say they are the really dodgy ones in society.
making laws that causes immense suffering to the human family.
they are the ones that should be stopped and examined and removed from the houses of parliament and replaced with people that put profit before principle.
yes it really principles that build a nation up...not greed and love of money...