UK: Protest at Met Commissioner's letter
01 July 1995
A storm of protest followed a letter written by the Metropolitan Commissioner Sir Paul Condon to "prominent" black individuals and organisations in which he claimed that 80 per cent of all street robberies in London were carried out by black men. The letter caused serious offence in the black community and culminated in many black people and organisations boycotting a meeting called by Condon to discuss a campaign against street crime planned to start on 3 August.
In the letter, which was written to prepare the black community for a clampdown on street "muggings" mainly targeted at young black males, Condon claimed that "it is a fact that very many of the perpetrators are very young black people who have been excluded from school and/or are unemployed." He goes on to state "I do not need to spell out the sensitivity in dealing with this problem".
The statistics upon which Condon based his letter were based on surveys of victims in Stoke Newington, Lambeth and Harlesden. All three areas are inner-city areas in which a high proportion of the population are black. Critics argue it would not be surprising to find that a high proportion of street crime would be carried out by black youths in the areas selected. The Voice quotes one critic who points out that for instance the figures for street crime in Newcastle suggest that 99.9 per cent of muggings there are committed by white youths.
Furthermore the emphasis on street crime, which is a fairly minor part of overall crime statistics, representing only 2 per cent of all crimes in the London area, has also been criticised. Other forms of crime such as burglary and violent assault are much more important statistically. These crimes are overwhelmingly committed by white people.
There has been a long history in Britain of linking street crime with race. In the seventies similar statistics were used to justify the infamous "Sus" laws, which gave police powers to stop and search people on grounds of suspicion alone. The explicitly racial bias attributed to the crime was spelt out by Enoch Powell in speech to the Police Federation in 1976 in which he said: "...to use a crude but effective word it (ie: mugging) is racial". Later London Commissioner Sir Kenneth Newman used similar arguments to justify the Swamp 81 operations which led to the Brixton uprisings of 1981.
A meeting in Brixton organised by the "Civil Rights" group passed a resolution finding Condon guilty of incitement to racial hatred. The group joined the National Assembly against Racism and the Joy Gardener Memorial Campaign in a 100 strong picket of a meeting called by the Metropolitan police on 28 July. This date had already attracted criticism because it was the second anniversary of the death of Joy Gardener during a raid carried out by police and immigration officials.
see Feature: "Policing the streets: the use and abuse of police powers" in this issue Statewatch vol 5 no 4.