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In the Eighties, I was out on the streets of London protesting against stop-and-search police operations. The Met harboured overtly racist officers and the sus laws were used to intimidate and demean young black men. The thought of handing such powers back to the police makes many black Britons deeply fearful. Yet today that absolute injunction against stop-and-search make less and less sense.
Talk to families whose own have been killed or have become vicious street killers - or indeed terrorists - and they ruefully accept that we must return to more pro-active, pre-emptive policing.
My friend Stan, a Caribbean musician, says to me: "I know the history but to save our kids we must empty their pockets, turn them over. These knives and guns are now part of their uniform, their mark of identity. It's a catastrophe. Is this why I left my homeland?"
Times have changed. Race is no longer as clear a marker between victim and perpetrator or criminal and law enforcer.
However, if sus is reinstated, there must be proper monitoring of the behaviour of policemen and women to ensure racial fairness and - more importantly - that the civil liberties of suspects are never violated.
But with those safeguards in place, it seems stop-and-search could actually help a disproportionate number of black and mixed-race families whose children are over-represented in gun and knife crimes, either as victims or perpetrators. Asian families, too, would feel more protected.
The Met has just set up sus units in the capital.
Sure, the innocent who are stopped and interrogated will be angered. But support is emerging among people you would expect to be most resistant, such as Ptrhys Bryant, a black teenager from Hackney whose friend was stabbed in the legs, and Stella Aina, a black social worker from Essex who knows her children will be six times more likely to be searched than white kids.
My friend Gloria, a teacher married to an African, says she gets her son - who has been in trouble with the law - to empty his rucksack and his jacket pockets when he goes out and returns. She wants the police to take over as the boy grows up. Like many black parents, she is prepared to suffer humiliation to stop a greater evil. But the police must behave impeccably, otherwise mistrust will return to our streets, and with it more violence.
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You can not expect that the Metropolitan Police will be fair in the manner with which these ‘stop and search’ or ‘sus’ laws are used. The Met are indeed the most institutionally racist police force in the country and they don’t like to be reminded of numerous reports, the most popular be; the Lord Scarman Report, the Macpherson Report as regards this endemic institutional racism. If you have a group of people entrusted with upholding the law, who blatantly, overtly break the law with indifference and impunity, by treating Blackmen as ‘token people’ a second, even third class human being – the mistrust which comes from this ‘institutional racism’, what the Met see as a war ‘on-crime’, war on ‘Blackmen’ will not go away just like that! Blackmen are denied jobs or jobs which pay reasonable wages and see no future for them selves or their children in the UK. If you feel you have no future, no identity, no role - then young Blackmen and now even women will begin to want to create an identity by literally, pushing the ‘self-destruct button’ and doing harm to themselves and others with impunity.
- Warren Alexander-Dean, London, England
Typical media hypocrite - what was wrong when she was a young trendy rebel, is suddenly alright now that she has become a middle-aged, conservative member of the establishment. I would rather risk being stabbed or shot than allow any police officer to stop me against my will with no reason, let alone search my person. I am a free man, and my freedom is not there to be compromised just to placate the paranoia of the likes of Ms Alibhai-Brown, who are more likely to die in their Chelsea Tractors or of heart disease than to ever be stabbed, let alone shot.
- R. Sole, Oxford, UK
Yasmin, yes it appears the uneasy trade-off is that relatively more black kids will get "sussed" but relatively more black kids may get saved from knife crime as a result. First though, you have to get more coppers out on the streets and the legal liberals aren't giving up on the form filling. I read of a barrister member on the MPLA (name escapes me) who was up in arms at the fact that scanners were being introduced without consultation via the MPLA. I expect that this person will passionately resist any reduction in the admin overhead on the police related to sus. There is no point tying down good coppers in the station for hours a day, they need to be on the streets and buses and trains. Finally, what good is it arresting the knife boys and girls then tagging them or letting them out on bail?
- Stephen, London. England
