BAME Lawyers 4 Justice Response to Parliaments Joint Committee on Human Rights Report Black people, Racism and Human Rights.

 

                                                            Sunday 15th November 2020
                                                                                              

We welcome the Black People, Racism and Human Rights report published on the 11th November 2020 by Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights

 

The Committee polled Black people in the UK to assess their views on the issues highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement. The report focuses on four areas; health, criminal justice, nationality and immigration and democracy.

 

General comments. 

 

The report makes several damning findings and critical recommendations, all of which we consider to be important in seeking to restore trust and confidence of the Black communities in the rule of law. Access to equality and equal rights is fundamental for all citizens.  The fact that a large proportion of our society continues to live with racism and discrimination and be treated as unequal citizens is no longer a tolerable situation. 

 

The report points to fundamental breaches of the social contract between citizen and State which is essential for any multicultural functioning democracy. Severe violations of Black people's human rights cited in this report provide a vivid illustration of the extent to which Black British people’s human rights are disregarded and abused. These human rights abuses take place despite the Government being aware of these serious issues as evidenced by 

legal commentary, academic reports and government inquiries, all of which demonstrate increased rates of racial inequality, injustice and oppression.

 

Whilst the report is welcome, we do not feel it goes far enough in its recommendations. 

 

For example, the Committee fails to recommend to the government that it should sign up to the general prohibition of discrimination outlined in Protocol 12, Article 1 the European Convention of Human Rights. (ECHR). Doing so would provide a strong indication of the Government's commitment to tackling the systemic and institutionalised racial discrimination. Signing this important protocol would also strengthen domestic race equality and human rights legislation thereby improving the trust and confidence of  Black communities.

 

The report also fails to reference this Government's failure to acknowledge or institute a programme celebrating and contributing towards the UN's International Decade for People of African descent, (2014 -2024)

 

Citizenship, human rights and the rule of law.

 

Fundamental to a sense of shared citizenship is a confidence in the equal application of the rule of law. This report highlights the reality that the majority of Black people do not believe that they are equally valued as citizens of the United Kingdom, nor do they think that they are treated equally before the law. This is informed by strong evidence from legal practice and academic research and validates the belief that Britain remains a deeply racist society where the colour of one's skin is more important than commitment to one's country.

 

The generally accepted principle and basis of the social contract between Government and the British Black community has been breached by a failure of the Government to acknowledge and take action to address systemic institutional racism. The consequences of these failures are profound and erode the very basis of the idea that Britain is a modern, multicultural, meritocratic and inclusive democracy.

 

There is a fragile balance between democracy, protection and obedience to the State. Failure to tackle racism presents an existential threat to our civil condition. The State can no longer credibly demand Black communities' obedience to the law whilst only offering partial protection against the degrading effects of institutionalised racism, injustice and racial disadvantage.

 

As a result, the State not only loses its authority, representative democracy ceases to have credibility in the eyes of those who are denied access to justice and equality.

 

The report's finding that over 75% of black people in the UK do not believe that human rights are equally protected is a chilling statistic that bears witness to the reality that black people in the United Kingdom are third-class citizens living within a supposedly "first-class democracy".

 

We concur with the Committee's analysis on this issue and subsequent recommendation "This is a damning indictment of our society and must be addressed as a matter of the highest political priority. To this end, the Equality and Human Rights Commission must undertake to run an annual opinion survey…" 

 

We welcome the Committee's undertaking to ensure that they hear from a diverse range of witnesses in their deliberations. Black Asian and Minority Ethnic Lawyers 4 Justice will assist the Committee by helping to facilitate input and evidence from a broad delegation from British Black communities.

 

We further agree that the Equality and Human Rights Commission has failed to provide adequate leadership or be effective or gain the trust of British Black communities in both tackling racial inequality and protecting black people's human rights. The recent appointment of Prof David Goodheart as an EHRC Commissioner a man whose on record of denying the existence and reality of institutional racism is a serious and deliberate provocation by Government and will simply further damage Black public confidence in the institution. 

 

The Committee's recommendation that a new Commission of Racial Equality (CRE) and the creation of local Race Equality councils should be established enjoys our support. All available evidence demonstrates that the racial inequality gap has widened since the demise of the CRE. The morphing of the CRE into the EHRC has failed.

 

We also urge the Committee to recommend that Parliamentary select committees conduct race equality impact assessments in all aspects of their work, and in particular, where known racial and ethnic disparities and injustices exist.

 

The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities mentioned in the report and chaired by Dr Tony Sewell (someone else who is also on public record as having challenged the very idea of institutionalised racism) and set up by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in response to the Black Lives Matter protests, lacks credibility. We anticipate its findings will not, given the views of its chairman, enjoy the confidence of Britain's black communities and are unlikely to make any strategically relevant or meaningful findings.

 

We support the idea of the need for a comprehensive cross-Government race equality strategy to improve the collection of data on racial equality but any cross-Government initiatives must include representation from affected communities of different perspectives.

 

Health.

 

One of the most significant areas of fundamental human rights breaches occurs in health. The Committee’s notes that "78% of black women and 47% of black men do not believe that their health is equally protected by the NHS when compared to white people".

 

Death in childbirth provides a profound and tragic indicator of the realities of the cumulative effects of systemic and institutionalised racism on black communities.

 

The Committee finds that seven in 100,000 white women, 13 in 100,000 Asian women, 23 in 100,000 mixed ethnicity women and 38 in 100,000 black women die in childbirth. The fact that there remains no significant government action regarding this issue is an appalling indictment. What it tells British black communities is that the Government views black women's lives as of no significant value.  Had white women died in similar numbers, this would be a national scandal.

 

The Committee’s recommendation that the NHS must set a target to end the maternal mortality gap is of critical importance and work must begin on this immediately.

 

We believe that the number of unnecessary deaths of black infants' is an issue that was deserving of recognition in this report. Black Caribbean and Black African infant mortality are recorded as 6.6 and 6.3 deaths per 1000 live births. These are the second and third highest ethnic minority into mortality rates behind that of Pakistani babies that die at a rate of 6.7 per hundred live the births. In contrast, white British babies have an infant mortality rate of 3.3 deaths per 1000 live births.

 

There can be no greater condemnation of any society that the ethnicity of its children should determine their life expectancy at the point of birth.

 

The Committee quotes Public Health England statistics which show the disproportionate and severe impact of Covid19 on Black communities stating that "after accounting for the effect of sex, age, deprivation and region, black people of Caribbean and other black ethnicities had between 10 and 50% higher risk of death when compared to white British people."

 

That Government and the National Health Service appear to have no substantive response to the increased vulnerability of Black communities to Covid-19 is further evidence of the extent of neglect.

 

That the Government has recently announced that any new vaccine will be applied to a list of priority groups that does not include vulnerable BAME communities must be revisited immediately based on the evidence.

 

Criminal justice.

 

The continued criminalisation of the British Black community through the process of racial profiling in policing and immigration and the effects of systemic, institutionalised racism have dramatically increased in the last 20 years. The Committee's report states of all the " issues covered in this polling this... [was the one area] where there was the greatest consensus...’. 

 

85% of Black people not being confident that they would be treated the same as a white person by the police."

 

This was particularly true for young Black people between 10 and 17 years old who only make up 4 per cent of the population but make up 33% of children remanded in youth custody. The Committee states "the number of children in youth custody from a Black background has increased 6% in the last year, and now accounts for 28% of the youth custody population".

 

The Lammy Review commissioned by David Cameron's Government in 2016 to look into racism within the criminal justice system identified profound ethnic disparities in criminal justice administration, processing and sentencing. The review made 35 key recommendations of which only six, according to the report's author David Lammy MP, have been implemented.

 

There is a profound crisis of confidence between British Black communities and police services in England and Wales. Public confidence surveys conducted by regional Police services including the Metropolitan Police Service have shown a catastrophic drop in the level of public confidence in policing. It is this area that we believe will act as a catalyst for wider civil disturbance if radical action is not taken to begin to address growing tensions between Black communities and the police.

 

Key to this, in addition to implementing the Lammy Review's recommendations, is addressing critical issues such as stop and search and the disproportionate number of black deaths in police, prison and immigration service custody. We agree with the Committee's recommendations to governments to establish an Article "right to life" Commissioner and Human Rights compliance unit to ensure investigative support to the victims' families and also ensure that critical recommendations for action are implemented to prevent future unnecessary deaths.

 

The recommendations from the Lammy Review and the Angiolini Review must be acted upon with urgency. We welcome the recent ruling by the Supreme Court that has determined that Inquest juries’ inquiries into sudden deaths, in seeking to determine where 

responsibility lies, should not now rely on the legal principle of ‘beyond reasonable doubt but should instead rely on ‘the balance of probabilities.”

Nationality and immigration.

 

We believe a culture of racism is implicit in British immigration policy and practice. The Windrush scandal provides a powerful spotlight on the serial injustice faced by many Black British citizens in seeking to access their citizenship rights. But people were unlawfully detained and deported because of the Government's "hostile environment" in direct breach of their right to liberty contained in article 5 of the ECHR.

 

There can be no more egregious example of the extent to which Black people are subject to racial injustice. Wendy Williams, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary Windrush Lessons Learned Review  into the scandal published in March 2020, found that "failings demonstrate an institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness towards the issue of race and the history of the Windrush  generation within the Department, which are consistent with some elements of the definition of institutionalised racism." We believe that the failings identified are entirely consistent with the definition of institutionalised racism and can be categorised as such beyond all reasonable doubt.  Williams found that the effects of the Windrush scandal was to inflict serious harm on its victims.

 

We agree with Windrush victims who wrote to the Guardian on 14 October stating that the Home Office’s improvement plan published on 30 September 2020 is "long on regrets but short on specifics of how and when appropriate changes will be made."

 

The Government's compensation scheme is failing the victims and is in total disarray, adding serious insult to grievous injury. Government’s decision to set the threshold of evidential requirements for eligibility for compensation as "beyond a reasonable doubt" is an insurmountable obstacle for the majority of Windrush victims in claiming compensation. This willful and malicious action by British Government provides powerful insight into the extent to which British Black communities are now treated with utter contempt by our Government.

 

We believe the Government should be subject to a motion of censure in both the Houses of Parliament and the House of Lords condemning its failure to deliver on its promises to ensure that justice was delivered to all Windrush victims. 

 

To restore trust and confidence within Black communities that this process is authentic and meaningful, we believe that the Government should provide a sum of £200 million to be given to an independent body. That body could then adjudicate and administer the process of compensation and reparation to Windrush victims and end the ongoing scandal that has seen victims sadly die whilst waiting for justice.

 

We are also concerned that polices and legislation governing deportation, family reunion, asylum and the fees structure for applying for immigration status documentation, need to be reviewed as a matter of urgency as these disproportionately affect and impact on the lives of the UK’s Black and ethnic minority population in an adverse way. 

 

 Conclusion.

 

Without immediate and substantive action to address the growth in racial inequality as a consequence of systemic, institutionalised racism and in the absence of Government, action to fundamentally address human rights abuses experienced by Black British people, we believe there could be increased racial divisiveness, a breakdown in respect for and adherence for the law and government institutions. 

 

The consequences of allowing Black British communities to continue to suffer such egregious abuses of our human rights will be civil disorder in our major inner cities and a breakdown in law and order. It is incumbent upon Government to recognise the realities of systemic institutionalised racism as it manifests itself in the fundamental abuses of the human rights of British Black communities, and to take urgent action now to avoid, what would be a national catastrophe. 

 

We will be contacting the Joint Committee to facilitate a delegation presentation from a broad range of national Black organisation and expert individuals that can assist in contributing to this important debate in an effort to support the work of the Committee and further highlight these issues. 

 

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Racism in Britain Is Rising: What Do We Do Now ?

Peoples Parliament Meeting.

‘Racism and Injustice in the UK: 

Community campaigns and 

transforming Society’

Tuesday 11th March 6.30pm – 8.30pm 

in Macmillan Room, Portcullis House.

Limited places! Book now you can find out more information here 

Stop and Search and the Office of Constable: The Mass Criminalisation of Black Communities

Unless you happen to Black or Muslim.

May I apologise in advance dear reader this is rather long article. It seeks to deal with issues that a rarely covered elsewhere in any depth and so by its very nature has become a complex read. I hope nevertheless you will take the time to read it as I have laboured long in writing this for you. Get a cup of tea, relax and put your feet up.

You will no doubt not completely agree with all I have written here, but in prompting debate its important that there is compelling argument.

I didn’t submit a consultation response to the Governments snap 8 week summer consultation on the police power of stop and search. After 30 years of an almost relentless rise in rates of stop and search under Tory, Labour and now a Tory led Coalition Government and countless consultations I really didn't see much point.

There are number of other reasons why I chose not to formally submit a view, but primary among them was that I, along with many of Britain’s black communities, have zero confidence in the Government’s commitment to tackle racism either more broadly or within the criminal justice system in particular.

Is she serious about reform?

This Tory led Coalition government has engaged in an ideologically driven purge that seen the gradual elimination and eradication of all traces of anti-racism or multiculturalism in Government policy. As far as race is concerned the Prime Minister has adopted the French model I dealing with racism  and determined no special provision, no focus on difference, no special interest group’s agenda’s and has given the issue zero political priority.

This has seen the dismissal of all national Black and ethnic minority consultation forums, the proscription of single ethnic funding for disadvantaged groups and promoted the most disgraceful demonization of immigrant communities. In addition, they have enfeebled the Equalities Human Rights Commission removing Black and Asian Commissioner’s, slashed budgets and sacked workers. They have made a bonfire of legal aid cuts and left black people with no ability to easily or affordably access or enforce our rights to be protected from racism and unlawful discrimination.

The history of formal consultation with black and poor urban communities is a sorry one of raised hopes, dashed aspirations and failed delivery. If our democracy is eroding and it is, (one look at voter turnout rates tell us that) then the process of municipal or statutory ‘consultative abuse ‘as I call it, has played a large part in alienating communities from local authority forums and wider democratic engagement.

After decades of unethical and poorly organised consultation the experience left most poor communities feeling both used and abused.

Statutory consultations are viewed by most living in poorer communities as nothing more than PR exercises that usually take place after the real decisions have already been made, informally or otherwise. Government, Council or statutory consultations are seen as tick box exercises.

Driven by either a legal requirement or political expediency, the outcome for communities is invariably the same. They feel frustration, anger leaving them feeling disempowered, patronised, ignored used and abused.

Consultation now leaves a nasty taste in the mouth and has become a dirty word that is spat out with venom. For me, having witnessed both the good and the bad, the issue of poorly timed, badly executed, patronising, crap consultation is right up there with MP’s expenses, Clegg and tuition fees and Blair illegal invasion of Iraq.

Such consultation is disempowering and acts as a drain on community confidence in statutory process and ultimately, confidence in democracy itself.

Stop and Search Consultation.

I consider this particular effort by the Home Office a joke, an attempt to appear to be listening while kicking the proverbial political football into the long grass. Bear with me dear reader and I will tell you why. Before I do though, it is important to understand the nature of racism in policing. As one of Britain’s most experienced campaigners on this issue I offer you the following insight into the problem we now face.

As a direct consequence  of the misuse of Stop and Search powers Britain's black communities are being criminalised at a persistent and alarming rate. The consequences for democracy and our communities, are simply devastating. What we are witnessing is the return to the pre Macpherson levels of mass criminalisation of black communities by a predominantly white male police force (and I use that word deliberately for this is how they are now perceived).

In the last year, in addition to the myriad of issues arising in the aftermath of August riots of 2011 we have seen a plethora of stories on stop and search. In January we saw Stuart Lawrence brother of Stephen, complained of being consistently targeted by Met officers for no other reason than the colour of his skin. In March a Met police officer was recorded telling a black youth  'You’re problem is you’ll always be a n****r'. 

In July the Met admitted what black communities had known all along, that it fails to investigate race complaints. An Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation uncovered the case of six Met officers sending each other deeply offensive racist texts.

In May the IPCC revealed that it received over 50 race complaints since the 1^st April and these are recorded complaint that are dwarfed by the mountain of unreported incidents that the community simply has no confidence in making.

The view of the influential Met Black Police Association officers is clear and uncompromising that the Met continues to be an institutional racist organisation and cannot be trusted by the public to investigate claims of racism. Then we had the simply devastating news that in the aftermath of Stephen Lawrence’s brutal racist murder, the Met had deployed undercover cops to spy upon and undermine the Lawrence family and their campaign supporters.

Increasingly viewed as an army of occupation by many communities, rather than upholders of the law, the Met have violently regressed on the issue of race, suffering a rampant relapse of institutional racism.

Racism as a social phenomena has endured for 500 years adapting, shape shifting, moving its focus from the crude unreconstructed racism of the 1950’s  to the smooth, barely detectable on the surface, sophisticated type of racism we see today. The impact of racism has morphed form the crude Teddy boy racist attacks and colour bars of the 1950's to school exclusions , job rejection, criminalisation and incarceration. Social mobility in all communities has declined and wealth inequality has increased for all  communities, but particularly, no let me rephrase that,  acutely so for the black community. Those colour bars remain even if the mode of oppression has changed

Whatever the changing face of racism, what is clear that  rates of racial inequality in Britain in the areas of education, housing health. wealth and criminal justice are rising and rising fast.

Racism remains one of Britain’s most contagious and virulent social viruses. Racism remains reactionary, evolutionary and resistant to change and in the current economic austerity climate, promoted by Tory politicians seeking to induce a climate of fear, it breeds a powerful sub culture.

In the institution of policing where racism is given the green light by affable politicians like Boris Johnson it becomes cancerous threat to communities that condemns thousands of black youths mass involvement with a racist criminal justice system.

Boris Johnson much like Mayor Bloomberg in New York, comes across as moderate, charming and affable. Black people In New York thought Bloomberg a moderate Republican and decent guy and yet he too resides over a force, the NYPD, whose deadly racism hides in plain sight. Most recently the NYPD Stop and Frisk policy have been deemed illegal after a federal judge deemed the policy violated constitutional rights of minorities in the City. Johnsons Met is no different in terms of stop and search from the NYPD.

Most Londoners will not be aware of the deep crisis in confidence experienced by black communities when it comes to the Met, but I can tell you things are really very bad indeed. A recent poll found that 38% of Black Londoners polled believe the Met remains institutionally racist and that’s an undercount.

One a lighter note though, the calamitous state of relations between the Metropolitan Police Service and London’s black communities has resulted with Met being renamed by inner London Black communities as the Metropolitan Discrimination Force (MDF). Joking aside, the breakdown in London’s police and black community relations, the sheer anger and outrage that many in our community, particularly young people feel towards the police remains unacknowledged by the mainstream press, media and political commentators.

Mayor Boris and his Policing and Crime Commissioner Mr Stephen Greenhalgh, have not only turned a blind eye to racial profiling within the Met but have demanded more of the same.

From the year the Mayor got elected in 2008 to 2011 he increased stop and search by the Met by a massive 200,000. The erosion of police accountability in London and the abolition of the Metropolitan Police Authority led to the complete dismantling, in line with Government policy, of all policy infrastructure that tackled institutional racism within the Met.

The clear signal sent to the Met by the Mayor was that race was off the agenda and the issue of race equality at the Met was placed on the policy back burner. In the most diverse city in the world that was a catastrophic political error that led indirectly to the riots of August 2011 and has led to a well of deep anger and frustration that has built up and will inevitably burst forth onto London streets. .

The Mayor to be fair had already declared that the Met was a post institutional racist organisation in his infamous Race & Faith report. However, like all resurgent infectious viruses that have failed to respond to an initial course of treatment, the culture of racism within the Met has become resurgent, more powerful than ever.

Such is its power and influence as the dominant organisational culture within the Met, that it literally eats police guidelines, policy and equality legislation for breakfast. It corrupts all before it and lays waste to the empty political rhetoric of equality.

This immense power is so culturally engrained, so deeply rooted in the Met’s DNA as to represent the most acute threat to democracy, levels of peace safety and security of the capital.


As I have stated previously but it bears repetition, I believe the disturbances of August 2011 will be occur again at some point probably before the general election in 2015 if not shortly after, but come they will, with a level of ferocity and venom that will shock and surprise many.

Constitutional discretion in policing drives racism in practice.

The driver of this culture of police racism is in my view directly related to the extraordinary level of officer discretion that in Britain is one of the highest levels of officer discretion anywhere in the western world.

“The police service in England and Wales is almost unique in investing its lowest ranking officers with its greatest and most intrusive powers”

So said, none other than Tom Windsor, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary and it is this Office of Constable that lies at the heart of untrammelled officer discretion, discrimination and disproportionality in modern policing.

Lord Denning, in his judgement in the case of R v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner ex parte Blackburn 1968 gave legal definition to the Office of Constable.;

“I hold it to be the duty of the Commissioner of Police, as it is of every chief constable, to enforce the law of the land. He must take steps so to post his men that crimes may be detected; and that honest citizens may go about their affairs in peace.

So every PC knows that he or she has the sole power to decide what is deemed ‘ suspicious’ and that determination is beyond question by anyone, by authority  given by the Crown.

Lord Denning went on to say,

“He must decide whether or not suspected persons are to be prosecuted; and, if need be, bring the prosecution or see that it is brought; but in all these things he is not the servant of anyone, save of the law itself.

“No Minister of the Crown can tell him that he must, or must not, keep observation on this place or that; or that he must, or must not, prosecute this man or that one. Nor can any police authority tell him so. The responsibility for law enforcement lies on him. He is answerable to the law and to the law alone.”

What these means in effect, is that when it comes to the interpretation of the law of the land, the PC is sovereign.

To change the level of individual discretion that police officers enjoy and abuse, would require the reform of the 12^th century ancient and now unfit for purpose, Office of Constable,  in order to ensure that police officer were personally and professionally accountable for their actions.

Want to lower the number of stops and searches? Amend the police regulations to remove officer discretion for reasonable suspicion and make the disproportionate targeting of black people by individual police officers a sackable offence.

No superior officers nor Ministers of the Crown can instruct officers to conduct less stop and searches and this absolute power forms an explicit part of the PC driven canteen culture of racial profiling that now threatens liberty and democracy. In the Met its the tail that wags the dog.

This mediaeval office is the root cause of disproportionality in the Met, not lack of training or more diversity courses, this archaic power gives rise to ancient prejudice and chronic injustice.

Such absolute power and discretion gives licence to racism and discrimination. The Office of Constable for me amounts to a codification of racism into the very heart of the institution of policing.  This the definition of institutional racism and it exists at the core, the very bedrock of British policing

In recent years Black British citizens are being subjected to the single most sustained and targeted campaign of police harassment ever seen in Britain. A quick look at the figures for Stop & Search shows the focus of police activity post the publication of the McPherson report rising from 100,000 per year in 1998 to a staggering 1.1 million in 2012. 

This despite persistent media reports at the time and subsequently that the police were reluctant to use the power as a result of the Stephen Lawrence report. The Met use of the power is abusive and unnecessary, they rely on this power more than any other force in the UK.  Within the lower ranks it’s seen as defining who runs the streets and in adopting that attitude the Met have become the biggest gang in London.

I urge you to read the excellent Release report on the Met’s use of Stop and Search and drug enforcement policy.

It makes devastating reading. What the reports details is the inescapable fact that the policing and prosecutions of drug possession offences in England and Wales is unduly focused on black and minority communities.

This report looks at racial disparity rates at 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. I along with Release, will be announcing a tour of major black communities across the country to discuss this report and its implications.

If you’re interested in hosting such a meeting then do contact me.

 Race: The political football.

Tory Home Secretary Theresa May is not by nature a committed anti racists. What then, are we to make of her sudden conversion to driving down disproportionate rates of black people being searched by the boys in blue?

In politics, timing is everything as is the mercurial arts of distraction. The timing of the Home Secretary, in publically declaring her commitment to non-racist policing followed the Channel 4 story of an undercover policeman who admitted to spying on the Lawrence family and their supporters. I’ll leave you to join the dots, but for me the whole Government consultation on stop and search is an exercise in distraction, a form of political Aikido if you will.

This is a tactic developed into an art form by the Met. Huge public uproar and scandal, followed by contrition, acknowledgement and apology, followed by consultation and then some small concession. This tactic seeks to absorb the community rage and anger by seemingly taking criticisms on the chin and where there are no legal implications, admitting some level of responsibility and inviting critics in to Scotland Yard to help them get things right.

There an escalating menu of options for defensive political Aikido depending on the specific gravity of the issue. However the general format is the same for all statutory agencies in crisis. Consultants are hired, terms of reference are drawn up, scoping report is produced and a year has passed. Critics are patronised as experts and given a place on the committee.

The current consultation is no different. The Government announces an urgent consultation, Minister’s huff and puff publically on the issue, guidelines are produced, and the healing balm of ingratiating bureaucratic co-option to working groups or sub committees serves both to impress and dissipate communities’ anger until the next time. Communities and campaigning organisation wait three years to find out the guidelines are not working, the recommendations not implemented and the whole process starts again. It’s a political process perfected in Government that perpetuates a cycle of reinvention. How many reports are there on stop and search have been written in the last 30 years, thousands and I mean that, literally thousands.

Scotland Yard and Government must have an aircraft hangar somewhere in Buckinghamshire stuffed to the rafters with reports and consultation feedback all dutifully ignored and left to collect dust, occasionally being cited as evidence of progress.

This stop and search consultation represents, in political terms nothing more than a small diversionary bush fire. The Home Secretary’s more urgent task is one of wholesale police reform and breaking the link in the public’s minds about police officer numbers and the level of crime.

No doubt she will have been advised I’m sure, that Association of Chief Police Officers, MPF and other Police Services are no pushover and she has one of the most thankless tasks in Cabinet. The received wisdom inside Government is that Home Secretary’s job is a hospital pass in rugby terms. There is even a legend “The path to reform of the Police is littered with the white bones of previous Home Secretaries who have tried before.”

The number of political scalps they have claimed in the past is testimony to that. At a time when the Government is committed to ‘reforming’ the police, which in essence means attacking their pay and pensions, any stick to beat the police will do.

The whole thing smacks of political opportunism of the highest order and as black communities we had a gutful of such political posturing at our expense.  So no I didn’t respond to the consultation having no faith whatsoever that anything other will emerge from Government than some new or amended guidelines. These will be dutifully ignored by the majority of street based PC’s and Stop and search disproportionality may dip monetarily but continue on its remorseless rise. There is simply too much money to be made by all in criminal justice system in the mass   criminalisation of black youth snared by Stop and Search in the war against drugs which is ostensibly a proxy for a war against black people.

It is my view that regardless of the outcome of the Government nothing much will change for the majority of black youth. What I suggest is radical civil disobedience to expose the moral hypocrisy of the law in relation to stop and search to force Government to change the law so as to racism in the execution of stop and search.

This is my 24th September Stop and Search Declaration so named to reflect the end of the cosmetic consultation of the Home Office and the beginning of a serious political discussion on how we, as committed black people and anti-racists, finally achieve change.

The article is meant to promote community discussion and offer a way forward out the continual process of history repeating itself leading to yet more oppression and injustice. Information is power and the findings of the Release report are incredibly important we are keen to work with you to disseminate its findings in local communities and develop a peaceful civil disobedience campaign. Here are the suggested proposals. First I think its important to have a declarative statement of intent, followed by some real action on the ground.

24^th September Stop and Search Declaration.

We oppose the arbitrary and discriminatory use of stop and search powers by British police services. We note the disproportionate and illegal targeting of black and ethnic minority communities by some police officers. We commit to challenging the discriminatory and damaging use of Police stop and search powers and the subsequent criminalising of black communities. This is vital if we are to retain the important principle of policing with consent.

We believe that all people should be treated fairly and professionally and without prejudice.

We uphold the right of all people resident in the UK regardless of ethnicity or faith to be treated as equals by British police officers in accordance with British human rights standards. We commit to working with others whose objective is to peacefully confront and expose the racist policing of our communities.

Stop & Search Agenda for Change.

1.    To consider a campaign of civil disobedience. If everyone who was subject to the power initially refused to provide their details the police would be forced to take you to a police station. Once there you can provide your details and no offence would have been committed and you would be released. Such action would fill up police cells overnight causing huge difficulties in police stations across the country.

2.    To mass peacefully in selected symbolic Police Station receptions all over the country. This would have a similar effect as above and again would cause huge disruption.

      3.    To organise mass rallies outside selected police stations.

4.    To organise groups of people to follow street foot police patrols to record and publish their activities

 

5.    To establish, where they don’t exist local Stop & Search Monitoring Groups to co-ordinate local activities.

 

  If  you would like to host a local meeting on Stop & Search based on the findings of the  Release report or would like to comment further contact me

 Lee-jasper@live.com