Stop and Search No Comment

[Lee Jasper]

A new British anti-terrorism law went into effect Monday 16th February that could effectively bar photographers from taking pictures of police or military personnel.
Any ideas how it might fit with this?

I wil come back to you on this gotta step out

 

[Taxamo Welf]

Hi Lee!

Just to say LOVED you at Respect festival a couple of years ago, you totally tied the event together

 

[editor]

I saw a white person being sussed the other day and remember thinking, blimey, i havent seen a white person being searched in bloody years.

Pop along to a footie game and there's searches galore going down.

 

[chainsaw cat]

If the stated purpose is to 'create a visual representation of the massive overrepresentation of black people being routinely stopped', then it seems a bit odd that they're only asking for pictures of black people who've been stopped and searched.

Wouldn't a token white face make more of a point about overrepresentation? Or - even better - a sample balanced to reflect the levels of overrepresentation in stop and search, juxtaposed with pictures / a picture showing what a representative sample would look like? An all-black sample gives no context, no background, no idea of what proportionate representation would be... Let alone what 'overrepresentation' means, or the extent of it.

Now that's why you need o level maths.

 

[TopCat]

I don't think it's a bad idea, especially, if done carefully. And I agree that taking photos of anyone being sussed is a better idea, as it will indeed give an indicator of the scale of the problem - especially if you give the reader/viewer the percentile population of white to black in this country / area.

I saw a white person being sussed the other day and remember thinking, blimey, i havent seen a white person being searched in bloody years.

Even by the sniffer dog tube mob?

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Surely you have to get the permission of the person being S&Sed; otherwise it could just become a secondary infringement of their civil liberties along side the police action. This may not be easy to do, but if your serious about protecting people's freedoms then you have to treat them with respect. I suggest you amend your Facebook page accordingly and promptly.

Louis Macneice

 

[cesare]

Surely you have to get the permission of the person being S&Sed; otherwise it could just become a secondary infringement of their civil liberties along side the police action. This may not be easy to do, but if your serious about protecting people's freedoms then you have to treat them with respect. I suggest you amend your Facebook page accordingly and promptly.

Louis Macneice

Definitely. Indignity of search, then having a record of it posted up in public to boot.

 

[TopCat]

Yeah you might find the images getting copied and appearing elsewhere to suit other peoples ugly agendas.

 

[chegrimandi]

I want to whisk you away to a deserted island beach, honey glaze you, let you cook slowly before a torrid and passionate embrace. How many ways do I love thee? As much as Brazil national football team or aki and saltfish. I love thee feet, ankles, legs, thighs, bum and belly, arms, head and brain. But most of all I love you in a flaming red sari, bangles chains or failing that in a bikini!

 

[TopCat]

I'm more interested to hear the answers to the questions missed by that resignation.

 

[bluestreak]

Even by the sniffer dog tube mob?

That doesn't really count does it? I was thinking more of the "pulled aside out of the crowd" type.

 

[salem]

I'm sure these people will love being splashed all over facebook legality of doing so is irrelevant IMHO.

And of course as people have pointed out is totally invalidated by inviting only pics of black people being stopped.

Could just as easily have a 'people with green t-shirts' being stopped & searched facebook pics.

Surprised this spam has been allowed to stay.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Who is Waddington ???

Professor at, IIRC, the University of Reading. He co-authored a fairly good paper on disproportionate stop and search.

Edited to add: A quick google shows that the paper's title is "In Proportion: Race, and Police Stop and Search".

 

[Wolf]

I would imagine that the reason that young black people are stopped by the police more often than their white counterparts is because they commit more of the crimes that they are being stopped for!

More young black people are convicted of robbery offences
45. According to the Youth Justice Board, young black people make up 3% of the youth
population but account for 26% of arrests for robbery.61 According to both the Youth
Justice Board and the Home Office, this has changed little over time since 2001.62
46. In Southwark, we were told that young black people account for 71% of robbery arrests
but just 37% of the local population. On the Committee’s visit to Leeds we were told 79% of
robbery suspects in Chapeltown are black. In London during the period April 2005–
February 2006, eight black youths were accused to every one white youth for robbery. 63

This is short extract from the House of commons Home affairs committee report "Young Black People and the Criminal Justice System"

Makes interesting reading!

 

[FridgeMagnet]

someone must have told him it was Nazi-boy day

 

[paolo]

I would imagine that the reason that young black people are stopped by the police more often than their white counterparts is because they commit more of the crimes that they are being stopped for!

More young black people are convicted of robbery offences
45. According to the Youth Justice Board, young black people make up 3% of the youth
population but account for 26% of arrests for robbery.61 According to both the Youth
Justice Board and the Home Office, this has changed little over time since 2001.62
46. In Southwark, we were told that young black people account for 71% of robbery arrests
but just 37% of the local population. On the Committee’s visit to Leeds we were told 79% of
robbery suspects in Chapeltown are black. In London during the period April 2005–
February 2006, eight black youths were accused to every one white youth for robbery. 63

This is short extract from the House of commons Home affairs committee report "Young Black People and the Criminal Justice System"

Makes interesting reading!

All of those numbers, apart from your lead-in, aren't convictions.

If you were being objective, you'd - say - take a contained area, compare the conviction rates for stuff usually covered by S&S (which you've not done, but alluded to), then compare the comparative S&S rates (which you've not bothered to do at all).

Only after that can you start to make those kind of 'merit' judgements, and even with that there are complications.

 

[TopCat]

A bit derailed but LJ has gone it seems.

 

[winjer]

Who is Waddington ???

P.A.J. 'Tank' Waddington, Professor of Political Sociology at Reading University, specialises in policing, author of 'Police (Canteen) Sub-Culture: An Appreciation' and 'The Strong Arm of The Law'. Unsurprisingly, an ex-copper.

Not to be confused with David Waddington, Professor of Communications at Sheffield Hallam University, specialises in policing, author of 'The Madness of the Mob?' and 'Policing Public Disorder', not an ex-copper.

 

[Hoxtontwat]

Anyone remember Tank Waddington's study of public order policing? i treasured that book. Would be good to see him do an update dealing with kettles/bubbles as tactics described are a little out of date now.

 

[ymu]

This might be of interest.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2009/feb/25/police-civil-liberties

I left dissatisfied but then fate, or rather the Metropolitan police, intervened to provide a living supplement to the exhibition. Within eight paces of the entrance to Taking Liberties two officers, a man and woman, had stationed themselves inside the library and without the slightest sense of irony or trespass were stopping people to ask their names, contact details and height under terror laws.

I would have taken a photograph with my phone but that has been made illegal so I watched while a stream of utterly ordinary-looking people were questioned. I asked one man whether this was usual in the British Library. Yes, he said, it was well known that the police used the library as a convenient means of boosting their stop and search quotas and balancing the number of black and Asian people stopped in the street with the white people in the library.

I cannot say whether this is true but I saw nothing to disprove it while I looked through the postcards. He added that the police favoured the library because at the entrance everyone's bags are given a cursory search. So the police had only to stop people, not search them, and this saved time for a pair of busy constables who were clearly in a hurry to get the names in their notebooks and move on.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

No Comment is the best advice anyway. It's important to keep an eye on the issue because any bullyboy tactics used on BME folk now could well be for the rest of us later. It's how this stuff works. After the cops had to stop being violent at Climate Camp (they looked like nobs in the media) they switched to goon squad harrassment and intimidation techniques. Again, these will become more common place should economic problems worsen to the point where this on the streets. Likewise, we could be a very food insecure nation in the medium term and things like ecological problems could bring about states of very nasty authoritarianism.

 

[winjer]

After the cops had to stop being violent at Climate Camp

When did the cops stop being violent at Climate Camp?

 

[winjer]

Anyone remember Tank Waddington's study of public order policing? i treasured that book. Would be good to see him do an update dealing with kettles/bubbles as tactics described are a little out of date now.

He makes some interesting points in his war of words with the other Waddington.

They both contributed to the Public Order special issue of Tank's journal, Policing, his editorial's here.