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Mrs Lawrence: Ethnic youths still more likely to be searched
Justin Davenport, Crime Correspondent24 Feb 2009
DOREEN LAWRENCE, the mother of murdered black teenager Stephen, today warned that society risks becoming complacent in the fight against racism.
On the 10th anniversary of the Macpherson report into her son's murder, she criticised police for continuing disproportionate stop and searches of black people.
She said she had worked closely with police over the past 10 years to implement many of the report's recommendations and had been encouraged by their response in some areas.
But she said: “We are in danger of being complacent by lingering over the successes and forgetting the obstacles that we still need to overcome.”
She said the Macpherson inquiry had vindicated the family's belief that police racism and incompetence was at the root of the investigation's failure.
She said: “What saddens me today is that, 15 years after the death of Stephen, there has been no long-term decrease in stop and search of black people. Black people are seven times more likely to be stopped. That is not progress.”
She questioned whether today's officers would react differently from those who encountered her son in 1993 after he had been stabbed by a racist gang at a bus stop in Eltham.
She said: “Would they see a guilty black man or would they see a young person bleeding on London's streets?”
At the same conference in Westminster, Justice Minister Jack Straw repeated his recent declaration that he did not believe the police service was still “institutionally racist” — the charge levelled in the Macpherson report.
Reader views (4)
I also agree that the figures show that a large proportion of crime is committed by black youths so of course they are stopped and searched!
- Suzy, West Midlands, 25/03/2009 02:05
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Just by looking at the figures, and the pictures in the newspapers, it's obvious that gun crime is a minority White British problem
- Cap, London, 25/02/2009 08:09
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Whether Mrs Lawrence likes it or not, unfortuantely it would appear that street crime is morely likely to be committed by black youths. Until this changes, the Police have my backing to try and keep the public - black or white - safe.
- Shirley, London, 24/02/2009 22:41
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If the statistics bear our that it's 7 times more likely for a mugging / street crime to be committed by a black youngster then the police are correct in their actions. When I studied this at university the percentage of street crime committed by young black males was approximately 90% (something Sir Paul Condon got in trouble for stating). I've been stopped before but it doesn't bother me. If you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about.
The bigger problem lies in the community refusing to accept that there's a problem of a culture of violence and crime, and instead trying to place the blame on the police. Operation Trident exists because there is a problem of gun crime within the black community. It's time for representatives of the community to accept this and try and come up with solutions, and indeed support the police, rather than try to blame them.
- Birko, London, England, 24/02/2009 16:38
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