UK: Stop & search: Ethnic injustice continues unabated (1)
01 January 2005
- Black people are nearly seven times and Asian people over twice as likely to be stopped and searched as white people. Over the longer term, taking all stops and searches together, the Asian community has experienced the the largest increase, followed by the black community and the white community the least
Last month the Minister responsible for counter-terrorism in the UK, Hazel Blears, appeared before the Home Affairs Select Committee, which was considering ‘Terrorism and Community Relations’. During the course of her evidence, she made the extraordinary statement that the new anti-terrorism legislation would be disproportionately used against the Muslim community. No Minister before has publicly admitted that certain laws will be used in a discriminatory manner contrary to the Race Relations Act and the other equality legislation in force in the UK. Not since the introduction of the Special Powers Act in Northern Ireland in 1922, has any government on these islands shown such disdain for the impartial and fair administration of justice. This is what is she said:
Dealing with the counter-terrorist threat and the fact that at the moment the threat is most likely to come from those people associated with an extreme form of Islam, or falsely hiding behind Islam, if you like, in terms of justifying their activities, inevitably means that some of our counter-terrorist powers will be disproportionately experienced by people in the Muslim community. That is the reality of the situation, we should acknowledge that reality and then try to have as open, as honest and as transparent a debate with the community as we counter the threat, because the threat at the moment is in a particular place, then your activity is going to be targeted in that way.[1]
The reaction from the Muslim community was immediate and forthright. Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: "She is demonising and alienating our community. It is a legitimisation for a backlash and for racists to have an onslaught on our community."[2] Blears’ words will also give the green light to the police that the targeting of specific communities, rather than individuals, is acceptable and will lead to an even greater disproportionate use of the stop and search powers between the white population and ethnic minorities.
Since the MacPherson Report and the claim that the Metropolitan Police force was institutionally racist, the Home office has developed a number of initiatives to try and prevent the current inequalities in the use of stop and search powers. The police must now make a record of each stop and search. In April 2004 the Home office issued an implementation guidance on stop and search and in July it set up a Stop and Search Action Team to ensure that police forces use the stop and search power fairly and as effectively as possible. Blears’ statement runs counter to all these initiatives.
In March the government issued the latest statistics on Race and Criminal Justice System for the period 2003-2004. A careful reading of the statistics show that the disproportionate use of stop and search powers against ethnic minorities has worsened.
As discussed on previous occasions (Statewatch vol 14 no 3/4), there are three main powers in use for which the police are required to record details of any stop and search: Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, 1994 and Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The use of the first two powers over the last year has shown a decline of 15% and 9% respectively. The use of section 44, the anti-terrorist power, has increased by over 36%.
Examining changes over a single year, however, is misleading. During her evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee Hazel Blears did just this to convey the impression that section 44 stop and searches had not increased as sharply for the Asian community as for others. Sh