Reports:

Police & Race - Jan 2009

Years after the Macpherson's report in to the murder of Stephen Lawrance:
With the backed by the support of the Government and police chiefs, many hoped that the Stephen Lawrence report would transform the police. However, such complacency was demolished in October 2003 by the BBC's television exposé, The Secret Policeman, in which an undercover reporter spent several months at a police training centre. The BBC reporter's findings, revealed some of the most devastating comments and images of extreme racism to have been uncovered within the police in recent years.

In response an investigation was launched by the CRE into race equality in police employment that ran from December 2003 to March 2005. The inquiry discovered encouraging progress in some areas, while other initiatives were considered to be profoundly flawed. Further study was subsequent work carried out by the Equality & Human Rights Commission since it was set up in October 2007. This study focused on police's performance in these four subjects; (1) employment, training, retention, and promotion; stop and search; the national DNA database; race hate crimes. The Commission published it findings in a full report recent. This report can be downloaded from their website.

For two main areas of most to our readers are concern "Stop and Search" and "Racial Incidents". For stop and search the Commission's analysis has also identified that in some forces a disproportionate number of people from certain ethnic groups are stopped and searched in particular by some Police Forces across England and Wales. Police statistics show that a decade after the Lawrence Inquiry report was published; black people are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white. Asian people are today twice as likely to be stopped and searched as white people. For racial incidents The Commission believes that overall there has been significant progress in the past 10 years in how the police deal with racist incidents.

Figures from the latest British Crime Survey indicate that the number of racially motivated incidents has fallen from 390,000 incidents in 1995 to 184,000 in 2006/07. However, the number of estimated racist incidents rose by 45,000 from a total 139,000 in 2005/06. One possible explanation is that rapid migration of eastern Europeans into areas not familiar with previous migrants might have resulted in an increase in racist incidents. The majority of racist incidents are not reported to the police. Recorded racist incidents in England and Wales rose from nearly 14,000 in 1997/8 to 61,262 in 2006/7.

The rise in reported crime figures can be interpreted as a form of 'success', in the sense that the police and other agencies have been trying to encourage a greater level of reporting among victims of race crimes. The Commission believes that initiatives such as Multi-Agency Panels, reporting networks and the Association of Chief Police Officer's Hate Crime Guide have all contributed to the improvements made in reducing racist incidents over the past decade. The report conclusion in that, in some areas the police service is making clear progress in delivering race equality as in dealing with hate crimes.

However, there are still grave disquiet about the change to the stop and search rule. It appears to be a shift back towards the discredited pre-1995 model, where in the eyes of the police, it was OK to stop and search black for being in a public place. The Commission made a number of recommendations. See; www.equalityhumanrights.com; "Police and racism: What has been achieved 10 years after the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry report"

Black to Basics (22nd October 2008) A historic gathering of the planets foremost practitioners, in the art of societal wellbeing, gathered in the lofty towers of a world capital city, south of parliament on the 21st October 2008. The international human dis ease known to the enlightened as racism, is one these practitioners have climbed many great towers to cure. Indeed their success as a network of societal wellbeing practioners, called Black Sections, has over the past 25 years opened the UK's systemic eyes. They have guided the states ability to heal, this systemic long term condition, by setting standards and targets now enshrined in legislation (Race Relations Amendment Act 2000). This legislation is unprecedented, and provides a systemic opportunity for cure. Aubyn Graham hosted and chaired this Black to basics meeting in Southwark Town Hall, with presentations from Black sections practitioners; Kingsley Abrahams, Marc Wadsworth, and Linda Bellos. They marked out the path Black Sections travelled, and clarified its cutting edge UK Black agenda of priorities. In the form of establishing a black representative political voice across; housing, education, health, economics and policing, as a healthy humane anti dote to the dis ease of racism. Today, though the political parties and state have shifted, the dis ease has not been removed. Today a number of great Black representatives have emerged from these practitioners of Black sections work. However, the nature of this dis ease is its capacity for mutation. Its infectious capacity maintains its hold by an illusion. The accountability and integrity of cure needs a monitoring capacity, only Black sections has been able to provide. Through its unique 25 year track record, and commitment, to this specific form of cultural intelligence. Saving the UK, and world, from under representation and crass tokenism requires, as minimum, the accountability and representativeness of Parliamentary representation. Very little is yet systemically in place for this. Instead we have a grotesque, disempowering, parody of representation. A sprinkle of Black faces a minimal proportion of who have passed through Black basics guidance, with world practioners in the Black sections nexus. The dis orientation we face in the inner cities is a result of the systemic dis ease racism, compounded by mutations, marginalising the cure. Modern society cannot afford to neglect the knowledge and experience of sincere Black representation. It needs to be hard wired into the political parties, parliament, and the state (cascading down to housing, education, health, economy, and policing) before the dis ease crunches humanity beyond all recognition. In the same way as Black people have been experiencing the crunch for over 400 years. Its time to move beyond extensions of machines, reproducing the same systemic sickness. Communicate with humans. In a filled South London committee room, younger and older humans, serious about saving the UK from the dis ease of racism, unanimously voted for the cure. This cure is ensuring the integrity of Black political representation, through the enlightening balm of Black sections, and the race assurance of Black only shortlists. This is distinct from the parody of representativeness, making our society so unwell. What is the organisation you depend on, support, ignore, or work with, or lead, doing to ensure the kind of political enlightenment enshrined in the Black sections movement, protects future generations from the global human disease Racism? We are all elements in curing system Racism dis ease. Please share your thoughts on these shared words? Paul Francis AKA Abu Akil