Stop and Search

[swansonj]

I'm afraid you're misinterpreting the chart. Where a region has, for example, a figure of "3 x more likely", this means that if non-white people make up 10% of the population they receive 30% of the total stop and searches. If they make up 3% of the population they receive 9% of the total stop and searches

So if you take practically every region, the % of stop and searches performed on non-white people is higher than their % of the overall population. In many cases massively so. So you cannot say that police don't target their stop and search at least partly based on skin colour. Because they do

25%, possibly, I suspect, but I completely agree on the general principle....

 

[nickyboy]

25%, possibly, I suspect, but I completely agree on the general principle....

You're right.

I've not seen that chart before. What is most interesting is the differences between different police forces. I don't believe that Dorset policemen, for example, are inherently more prejudiced than others. It must come from the management

 

[Drago]

Yesterday a man approached me as I cycled down Hurst Street in Birmingham and asked me if he could have a word with me. I thought he was a chugger or rent boy so I said 'no' and cycled on. About 100 metres later I realized that he might have been holding out a police warrant card.

It got me thinking - do the police have any right to stop and search you or even stop and question you?

Yes. Section 1 of PACE and section 23 Misuse of Drugs Act are the main ones, but there are also terrorism related powers.

 

[ufkacbln]

Is it appropriate to do a "Blacks of Greenock" reference here?

Blacks of Greenock .... would have been for acting within tent

 

[Drago]

But you would expect them to identify themselves as a police officer.

If its a stop search, yes. It's part of the spiel.

 

[Tim Hall]

Blacks of Greenock .... would have been for acting within tent

<thwacks Cunobelin around head with tent pole>

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Reading suggestions

Most serving Officers, of my acquaintance, agree wholeheartedly
I know them through seeing at my workplace, or there's a few in my running club

https://theinspectorgadget.wordpress.com/

Great books;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wasting-More-Police-David-Copperfield/dp/1906308195
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product...4_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=V8F5HB0W2XW7WKBJHDZZ

Taken from the Gadget book reviews, at random;
A fascinating and truly revelatory book, Inspector Gadget reveals that he is not allowed to make a cup of tea in his police station (in case he scalds himself), wear combat trousers (in case he injures himself on something he puts in a pocket), or turn on his desk fan until it has been checked by an expert (something that probably won't happen until December).
He is, however, allowed deal with scores of drunken yobbos in his district of a Saturday night.
As he says: "Kettles and trousers - too dangerous".
"Tackling 250lbs of screaming, tattooed nightmare, armed only with a 50g tin of pepper spray which doesn't work and a flimsy aluminium stick - you carry on officer."

 

[ufkacbln]

<thwacks Cunobelin around head with tent pole>

Ouch!

 

[Drago]

I've grave doubts that Inspector Gadget is a real copper. He seems to have my worst day every day of his career.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Either you worked in an area which was exclusively white - or you're talking bollocks...

I know which one my money's on.

In West Central Scotland, even now, black people are definitely a tiny, tiny minority when compared to, say, the south of England. Growing up, seeing a black person was a novelty, they only ever existed in films and the TV (If people are offended by that, tough, it was true)!
Now, there are, however, quite a few asians here, like Indians and Pakistanis, but I do not know how the Police *supposedly* treat them (well, until recent years anyway).

I am suggesting that *maybe* Brandane has forgotten about the odd one or two, but on the other hand, in somewhere like Greenock, with the type of people he was following, the numbers of non white would be so vanishingly small that maybe, just maybe, he is right, and lets face it, he would be more likely to remember them anyway.

I'm afraid you're misinterpreting the chart. Where a region has, for example, a figure of "3 x more likely", this means that if non-white people make up 10% of the population they receive 30% of the total stop and searches. If they make up 3% of the population they receive 9% of the total stop and searches

So if you take practically every region, the % of stop and searches performed on non-white people is higher than their % of the overall population. In many cases massively so. So you cannot say that police don't target their stop and search at least partly based on skin colour. Because they do

Yes, 'practically every region' as you say. What you are saying is all very well, but every region is different demographically, and, well, you are not including Scotland!

 

[Wobblers]

Either you worked in an area which was exclusively white - or you're talking bollocks...

I know which one my money's on.

To be fair, I believe Brandane worked in or around Greenock which:

a) At the time, was indeed almost exclusively white, and

b) Suffered plenty of trouble from the local Ned denizens - who were also almost exclusively white. And armed. If you ever met a Weegie who offers to "chib youse", my advice is run away...

 

[srw]

To be fair, I believe Brandane worked in or around Greenock which:

a) At the time, was indeed almost exclusively white, and

b) Suffered plenty of trouble from the local Ned denizens - who were also almost exclusively white. And armed. If you ever met a Weegie who offers to "chib youse", my advice is run away...

Stopping and searching disproportionately young white men is a different kind of discrimination, which is equally likely to be misjudged.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/scotland-blog/2014/jan/17/scotland-police-stopsearch

 

[Wobblers]

Stopping and searching disproportionately young white men is a different kind of discrimination, which is equally likely to be misjudged.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/scotland-blog/2014/jan/17/scotland-police-stopsearch

It's not so very long ago that Glasgow, and indeed the whole west of Scotland had a very high incidence of stabbings. You may guess what particular section of the population featured disproportionately in this. The question is whether or not targetting those most likely to commit that sort of crime misjudged - or good policing.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Crime, especially violent crime, drug-associated crime and crimes against property, tends to take place in poorer, deprived areas. Greenock and port Glasgow certainly qualify as deprived areas and are known for a chronic drugs problem. Most crime, in fact the vast majority of crime, is committed by 14-25 year old males (want to cut the crime stats? Lock up every male between their 14th and 25th birthday) so it makes absolute sense for the police to target young men in deprived areas because there is a statistically much higher chance of them being involved in crime.

When this is transposed to England, it's also a fact that the most deprived areas have higher concentrations of black people, to the extent that we have special police units dedicated to tackling violent crime involving black people but this has nothing to do with race and everything to do with social deprivation.

When you treat violent crime as a disease (as Glasgow very successfully did), using the symptoms to point towards root causes then you have a chance of fighting it. Stop and search addresses the symptoms not the causes.

All the pish peddled about racist police detracts from the real issues. In Glasgow, the community itself was well aware that the problem involved them so the solution had to involve them too. All I ever see from London is attempts to blame an institutionally racist police force for all the ills that befall the black communities.

 

[srw]

It's not so very long ago that Glasgow, and indeed the whole west of Scotland had a very high incidence of stabbings. You may guess what particular section of the population featured disproportionately in this. The question is whether or not targetting those most likely to commit that sort of crime misjudged - or good policing.

The Met Police used to point out that black people were disproportionately involved in stabbings. American police point out that Muslim men are disproportionately involved in terrorism. They didn't understand Bayesian statistics. The (false) argument is "people of this kind are more likely than people of that kind to do bad thing X. Therefore I shall target people of this kind." Not only is this sort of targetting overtly discriminatory, bad policing and misjudged, it's also bad science.