In a reasonably egalitarian culture, stop and search would be all right. If there really was no way of telling which members of our society were likely to be the "bad apples", then we could all, hand on heart, declare that if it was going to save lives, then we didn't mind being stopped and searched occasionally.
Yet. clearly, it isn't going to be that way. The frightening problems that have inspired this return to policies that proved so divisive a quarter of a century ago, are not problems that affect people generally. On the contrary, the proliferation of gun and knife crime, is highly particularised, and confined almost uniformly to the poorest people, the people with the fewest educational opportunities, the people with the least comfortable family backgrounds, the people who live in the social housing that has been so marginalised in that same quarter of a century.
Tellingly, that group contains, disproportionately, people from ethnic minorities, who do not find Britain an easy place to "get on" in. Their failures stigmatise them, and this way of policing their failures stigmatises them further. Can more of what ails people, improve them? Or will it harden divisions, harden resentments, harden anger, and harden fear? If the last ten years, navigated under the warm fantasy that wealth trickles down, and washes social exclusion gently away, have taught us anything, it is that social division is intractable. Stop and search further bolsters the divisions that have fed our problems.
The police already seem at times unable to respond to specific situations in which members of the public report reasonable suspicions. Under these circumstances, they already have the right to stop and search. How they believe that increasing their ability to alight ramdonly on suspicious-looking characters, is either operationally efficient or socially productive, is really quite mysterious. Stop and Search is a desperate measure. It is a sympton of exclusion and despair, and not its antidote.
Thanks Deborah,
In a few words you've summed up exactly why initiatives to tackle crime fail over and over again. If half the resource that goes into detection went into long-term prevention by addressing root causes, then considerable progress could be made. But there seems little hope of that any time soon.
Posted by: Mark Braund | Thursday, 31 January 2008 at 08:59 PM
I have a problem with the basic logical premises of this article. It is true that ethnic minorities tend to be from lower socio-economic backgrounds. This is not surprising really if you think about what sort of educational backgrounds most of them had. Even a doctor, if they trained in China or India, has problems working as a doctor in Britain. However there is little evidence that this is persistent. Ethnic minorities tend to do disproportionately well at school and in business into the second generation. The cliche is that Patel is the most common name for millionaires in the UK. It is a few communities that show persistent multi-generational poverty and low achievement. Most Muslim communities and Afro-Caribbean communities for instance. Not, however, African communities. Which rules out racism as your average British racist can hardly tell the difference and is unlikely to care. Nor do women from those groups do as badly as men suggesting a *cultural* factor within those communities.
Even if we accept that minorities are poor, does it follow that "stigmatising" them is going to hurt? I would suggest not, or at least not as much as cracking down on crime will help them. The victims of crime are disproportionately poor minorities. Being stopped and searched may harm their self esteem but so does being mugged or raped. Not even mentioning being stabbed. Nothing stops a small business like being robbed on a regular basis. Even bullies who beat up smart children at school are likely to have a greater impact.
There was a fuss in the 1980s over stop and search. Let me suggest this was an early attempt at Respect and the Stop the War Coalition. Having failed to rouse the workers, the Trots tried to make a common cause with the ethnic minorities (as they do now with the Islamists) against The Man. And they were successful. Let me also suggest that outside those self-appointed "community leaders" there is no concern about Stop and Search at all in any ethnic community. Even if there is, the problem will only go away when those communities accept that S&S is the lesser of two evils and having their children stabbed to death on a regular basis is worse. Time to ignore the hysteria over S&S, and for a lot more proper reporting on who is behind these campaigns, and restart what was and is a reasonable policing measure.
Posted by: Benjamin Kirby | Friday, 01 February 2008 at 10:30 AM
Maybe, just maybe, there is a question not so much if S&S is done, but ... how ?
The explosion in france before christmas began in an area where the cops disrespectfully and regularly stopped "minorities" for an "ID check" .
"Alright Mamadou, let's see your papers then ".
Anyone remember the undercover BBC? journalist who recorded racist language at a Police Training School ?
So the answer is we need clever policing. Since they take their lead from the politicians, unlikely, eh ?
Posted by: fr dave | Friday, 01 February 2008 at 11:33 AM
"Most Muslim communities and Afro-Caribbean communities for instance."
You mean Pakistani or Bangladeshi, rather than "Muslim".
Not, however, African communities.
And by 'African' do you include Somalians?
Posted by: thbt | Sunday, 03 February 2008 at 06:38 AM