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The police are to get more powers to stop and search people without giving detailed reasons. I hear this and am fearful that we will return to the Eighties, when racist police officers used sus to intimidate and goad black Britons; I covered many of these stories. Blameless Asian men, too, have had to endure unfair searches and accusations since the bomb attacks on London. Black and Asian males are much more likely to be stopped by police than white males.
Some safeguards were introduced after trust had all but broken down: police have to provide written accounts of why they stopped an individual. Now Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has decided to dispense with that requirement and permit random and frequent police searches to deter knife and gun crimes and terrorism. David Cameron wants a similar shift. But although my commitment to civil rights is as strong as ever, and despite apprehension, I'll go along with the new policy.
Too many young black and Muslim men have died or ended up in prison and their families are now desperate for tough policing, as long as there is proper supervision by top cops. A Muslim Somali counsellor said to me this week: "We don't understand what is happening to the men in our families. The police must stop them before they start joining the terrorists."
The mother of a young Afro-Caribbean man who was killed on a London street last year came up to me in the supermarket and asked in a breaking voice: "Why don't they bring back sus? The black lads carry knives in their pockets and nobody stops them. They killed my boy - cut him like he was steak. Like Mrs Lawrence I, too, lost someone - my son." If the new measures help to stop another such tragedy, they must be supported.
In some London streets and schools weapons and murders have become symbols of young, black, male masculinity. Killing each other to feel big - how senseless is that? Meanwhile young men in some Muslim enclaves feel big and powerful by joining jihadis in mosques and on the internet.
The police must get to these boys and men before they wreck their own lives and the lives of others. Gun and knife amnesties have made no difference. It is time for instant disarmament and preemptive intervention. Even if care is taken, black and Asian Britons will, of course, feel violated. But we are where we are - and the humiliation will have to be borne for a greater good.
Reader views (1)
Yasmin, if I may summarise, sus was 'bad' when mainly white Britons were being mugged/killed on the streets but sus is 'good' now that mainly Black and Asian Britons are being mugged/killed on the streets?
- Stephen, London, England, 31/01/2008 12:27
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