GlobalEyes/topcop

Welcome to
GlobalEyes

Your Weekly Window
in the Mirror of the World
Spartacus R.
editor of Global Africa Pocket News and author of "Violation" and "The Maat Mystery" takes another look at the world.

STOP and SEARCH
If the Top Cop Can't Tell...

In 1980, after many decades of intense pressure from activists, victims, victims' families and an increasingly awakening population, the British government officially abolished the notorious 19th Century social control legislation known as the cursed "sus" law. According to one prominent MP: "The sus law was abolished because it was seen to be oppressive.". A few short months later, in 1981, when most people had been led to believe that sus was gone forever, the government launched a devastating terror campaign against African communities in key parts of the country, introducing us to Stop and Search (S&S) the new "son of sus" law. What was significantly different about the "Swamp 81" operation from the execution of the old sus law was:

A) its violent intensity and
B) that it indiscriminately targeted the whole African community, not just the youths.

The community's response, which should have been expected after thirteen young African people were murdered in the New Cross Fire Massacre, shook the foundations of the British establishment. It was, to some, one of the worse periods of civil unrest in "peace time" Britain.

"Stop and Search", the cornerstone of "Swamp 81" was ratified in law three years later, within the Criminal Justice Act of 1984. Like its obnoxious father, S&S continues to be used disproportionately and with greater enthusiasm, against the African community, than any other group in the British isles. Many senior officers and police state advocates affirm that S&S is their most powerful weapon against "street" crime. It is indeed, a very powerful weapon, but not against street crime. As the Nazis, Israelis and South African gangster regimes have demonstrated, S&S is a very effective, social control weapon against an oppressed community.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Consider this: 70% of the people stopped and searched by the Metropolitan police in their latest campaign in Lambeth code named "Operation Tippet", were African. Nearly 90% of them were not arrested for any offence. Most of the 14% arrested were for small quantities of Marijuana, a harmless recreational drug to some or a religious sacrament to others. You don't need a computer to see that the majority of those whose human rights were violated by this operation were African.

In other Metropolitan police figures supplied by the Home Office, it is clear that a higher percentage of Europeans who are stopped and searched are arrested and later convicted of some offence (even though African people are treated less fairly by the courts). So, why is it that the majority of people stopped and searched are still innocent Africans?

After the Lawrence Report concluded that the police force is institutionally racist, the establishment tried to justify and reason away their inherently racist, oppressive behaviour. They stated that because of the report, many officers had refrained from using S&S on African youths and, as a consequence, the incidence of street crime rose dramatically. The fact that "white collar" crime (computer, banking, electronic, Internet, etc.) rose even more dramatically over the same period, was never commented upon.

CRIMINAL TENDENCY

Most commentators, including many who should know better, suggest (contrary to their own statistics), that African people are somehow more criminally inclined than other people and therefore we need to be policed Gestapo style. They justify this erroneous and racist belief by suggesting that poverty, lack of occupational and recreational facilities and even lack of education, are the main causes of crime. They forget that the majority of crime and the most profitable of them, are committed by a relatively small minority of the well-educated and well-connected upper and middle classes. According to official government figures, it is clear that African people are less criminally inclined than Europeans.

Let me explain: If you S&S 100 African people and convict 10 of some crime as a result, you have a 10% criminality rate. If in the same campaign, you S&S only 20 European people and convict 8 as a result, you have a 40% criminality rate. Of course, government, police and media alike, will manipulate the figures dishonestly to show that there are 20% more convicted Africans than Europeans, (10/8) and therefore African people have a "greater propensity" to commit crimes. That could not be further from the truth. Their figures say that Europeans are between two and four times as criminally inclined as Africans.

THE QUESTION

At a recent public meeting of the Lambeth Community/Police Consultative Group, (9th January 2001), John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, reaffirmed his faith in S&S. He and his accompanying officers tried, in the face of overwhelming opposition, to convince us that the terroristic violation of our human rights is good for us. In defence of their actions, they repeated the cliché that they only S&S people who they believe have a "propensity" to commit a crime.

I asked Mr. Stevens how he can tell by looking at a person with no criminal record, who has not been seen committing any crime, that he or she has a propensity to commit a crime. Shielded by an obviously biased chairperson, the Commissioner dodged the question twice. On the third attempt, he answered: "I can't tell".

Having asked this same question for over fifteen years and having received a long string of evasive, dishonest, convoluting, politician type answers, it was a bit of a shock, yet refreshing, to hear for the first time, an answer which reflects the true reality. For her own reasons, the chair prevented me from following up the question. Did the fact that her live-in lover is a serving police officer have any bearing on her behaviour, as one member of the meeting suggested? I wonder...

FUNDAMENTAL

And again, I wonder: if the top cop can't tell..., how can the little pig...? Apart from the Home Secretary, John Stevens, as the country's top police officer, is the man ultimately responsible for the behaviour of every single officer in the Metropolitan force. The very foundation of S&S, the fundamental principle upon which it is founded, is the idea that a police officer can somehow look at a person and tell by the person's "profile", i.e. age, dress, environment, ethnic background, gender, superficial behaviour, time of day or night, etc., etc., that the person has just committed, is about to commit or is in the process of committing, a crime. When the highest paid, most senior police officer in the land cannot meet the basic requirement of S&S, how can his lowest ranking foot soldier who, we might assume, is not as smart as the boss, be expected to? In the absence of any tried and tested scientific methods, he or she can only rely on personal prejudice or social stereotyping to make such a judgement. Yet every day the Commissioner sends thousands of them out on the streets to implement a policy of Stop and Search, under the guise of preventing or solving crime, knowing full well that of the many thousands of people they will stop and search each day, not a single one will be or can be identified on sight as a criminal, unless he or she is already "known" to the officer in question or has actually been seen committing a crime.

The government has just announced a 21% rise in street crime figures for London. According to the Evening Standard, senior police officers are "surprised by the explosion in street robbery, which has been particularly high in boroughs such as Lambeth and Islington" two of the boroughs which have been subjected to numerous anti-street crime special operations and which (coincidentally?), have high concentrations of African people. In light of the claimed success of those campaigns, it would appear that S&S either has no effect on street crime or encourages it.
So, if S&S is not about stopping criminals or preventing crime, what is it about?

WEAPON OF WAR

It is a weapon of war. There is an ongoing war between Global Africa (Black people) and Global Europe (White people) that's been raging for over a thousand years. Most African people in the British isles know that there is something wrong with the way we continue to be mistreated by the British state but not many realise, or would even accept, that this is because we are at war.

But, just like in nazi Germany, apartheid South Africa, occupied Palestine and every other territory where an oppressive government has had to keep an identifiable minority or majority under control, so the British government, regardless if its blue or red, has to keep its African population in check. As part of their population control programme, (see Global Africa Pocket News (GAP News)Vol. 1, No. 7) they try to criminalise and neutralise our youth, the strongest, most vibrant sector of our community, with the widespread introduction of dangerous drugs, cheap guns and police terror, featuring Stop and Search and the hi-tech twins, Covert and Overt Videoing.

If we allow the continued use of S&S, with its tendency to terrorise and demoralise, we could eventually, come to accept the abuse as normal and necessary. At that point, it will be too late to do anything about it. I am not saying that the police should not S&S "known" criminals or people they know are committing crimes. I am saying that we should not allow them to criminalise, terrorise and demoralise a whole community on the pretext of preventing the crimes of a very small minority, some of whom are agents of the state anyway (see COINTELPRO UK).

We have the power to do as we will. We need to learn and we need to teach our children that we have basic human rights which no government can deny us by imposition of repulsive, repressive laws. If we can learn from the lessons of our anti-sus campaigns and act accordingly, we can make Stop and Search an unworkable proposition and end it - permanently. The way things are, we have nothing to lose but an unwanted pain. So let's STOP IT.

................. End ................

Your comments, criticisms, observations, reactions, etc. are welcome and will be greatly appreciated. All contributions, positive or negative, may be published, unless you request otherwise.

Please feel free to publish this article, providing the source and the author are properly credited, text is not edited and descriptive terms or phrases are not altered in any way without written permission.