Wednesday 6 June 2012

Stop and Search - Is It Cos I'm Black?

Assistant Chief Constable, Paul Marshall, of Suffolk has been wringing his hands and attaching a few leeches to his heart. He is 'disappointed' that Ipswich, Suffolk only has a black and Asian population of 2% but 12% of the people searched by his, obviously racist, officers are black and Asian. He would really like to ban his racist officers from searching black and Asian people but that would cause even more of a stink in The Mail and definitely ruin his future career.



There have been many possible theories put forward regarding the disproportional number of Visible Ethnic Minorities (VEM's) being stopped and searched. For example, the resident population may not accurately reflect the numbers of VEM's on the streets of that area. VEM's may offend disproportionately to white offenders. Police officers are more likely to record stop and search of VEM's because there is more likely to be a complaint about the search.

There may be something in all of those theories but the liberal brigade will conclude that even allowing for those reasons there must be racism within the police to account for the figures. It has to be said that figures in the Met show more VEM's being searched than white people but this reflects the large use of S44 Terrorism searches.

The population of my force is approximately 91% white, 6% Asian and 2% Black. The 2010/2011 statistics show that of those stopped and searched by the police in the force, 83% were white, 8.5% Asian, 5.5% Black and 3% Mixed Race. Does this mean that the Force has racist tendencies we need to address? I have no doubt that there are racists in the Force. Plenty is done to tease and weed them out, but at the end of the day police officers are recruited from the general population, some of whom are racists. Any racists in the force don't show themselves up in stop and search. Records are monitored to see if any officers are searching VEM's disproportionately. I have concerns that some officers avoid searching VEM's in case of accusations of racism.

Some stop and searches are spontaneous. For example, if you stop a vehicle or person in the street and there is a smell of cannabis, that may give you grounds to search. In most cases though, there is an incident report to support stop and searches. For example, if a crime is reported by phone and a suspect has recently been seen, a description is taken and passed over the radio to officers. I am not aware that this sort of detailed research has previously been carried out.

I decided to go through the latest incidents in my own force area until I had found 100 with a description that had been circulated to officers to try and trace offenders. By the time I had reached 100, 18 incidents had suspects described as VEM's. This is almost identical to the 17% of VEM's searched by officers in the force, which is almost double the 9% of VEM's resident within the Force.

I do appreciate that this is just one small sample and even if these figures were replicated elsewhere, it may just reflect racism within the public reporting crime. It may however show that the police are simply acting responsibly to what is being reported to them. Perhaps Mr Marshall, you needn't be disappointed with your officers after all.

24 comments:

  1. More visible? So blacks go out more? Jesus what a dumb statement. Equality? You talk of it as though it were a bad thing. Oh and "liberals" yes we are the ones who fought nazis in the last war. Only to see the UK become a police state. Even by your comic standards Lex this is one of your lousiest efforts.

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  2. Do you have data on what percentage turned up something in each demographic?

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  3. Ciaran, you are getting worse. You really need to read things properly and not read into it what you want to see.
    Can you tell me where I have said VEM's are more visible? Where have I mentioned equality or suggested it is a bad thing?
    Liberals (small l) wanted to make peace with Hitler and would have let him walk all over Europe unimpeded. It took brave people who were in touch with reality to take the decisions to tackle him.
    Police state! I only wish there was any sort of order, responsibility and consequences in this country. The country is now infested with liberal policies whereby all responsibility is devolved to the authorities and no one takes responsibility for their actions or lives. A bit more direction and personal responsibility would be a good thing.

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  4. Metaldog - you can find all the stats here
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7imiOI-UHOoJ:www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/police-research/immigration-tabs-q4-2011/stops-searches-1011-tabs%3Fview%3DBinary+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

    SS13 shows the arrests following searches.

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  5. as a white guy i have been stopped late at night in my car 3 times in the past 8 years

    i think they were hoping to catch drink drivers as they said i was speeding but if i was it was only by 2mph tops.

    anyhow they used a breathalyser- i passed and they were firm but polite.

    fair enough.

    petulant, unjustified and fraudulent claims of racism merely undermine genuine cases of racism when they do occur. Pity.

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  6. This post is going to bring a few losers out from under their stones Lex.
    No matter how much arse we kiss people will still shout racist at us.It's what they do to muddy the waters and if it makes one police officer hesitate to search a black criminal then they have won.

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  7. Cheers for the link.
    I'm not very good with numbers, but comparing Suffolk and the Met's stop/arrest numbers with the aid of an online percentage calculator throws up percentages that are quite disparate in Suffolk. Much smaller sample size, though, which is going to make things a lot spikier. Stats are just a starting point for looking into that sort of thing, aren't they? It doesn't seem actively mad to have a closer look at stuff, just to be sure.

    The Met's sample size is vast and the percentages look much more even there, but I'd imagine they have people scrutinising the arrest to conviction rate even so.

    Can't believe you bit that Godwin, though.

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  8. Jaded - you are right and it has as CR has shown.
    With discipline cases being decided on the balance of probabilities it is hardly surprising that single crewed officers will think twice before dealing with difficult people who are likely to complain. Falling morale will only see this problem increase. They are already winning. And think what it is going to be like when G4S are dealing with incidents.

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  9. Order responsibility and consequences? How neo nazi you sound. 3500+ new "laws" under Blair/Brown criminalising protest (which is what WW2 was about BTW. Freedom) Resonsibility? World's largest National DNA Database with 2 million innocent on it (95% black males are on it, how many scummy public school nonces?) Consequences? Like jails filled with political prisoners, opposition spokesmen in exile and c**ts like the Simmons not being arrested? Wake up and smell the cawfee!

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  10. Oh dear Ciaran, I think you need your medication updated.
    You haven't answered my queries regarding your previous stupid allegations.
    We might actually agree that the Blair/Brown regime was one of the most disastrous in our history. Those feckless idiots almost bankrupted our country. They regulated almost everything to impose their destructive liberal policies but missed the banking crisis completely.
    If you want to be taken seriously you really need to stop making ludicrous allegations which tend to portray some madman frothing at the mouth at your keyboard.
    95% of black males are on the DNA database! Ludicrous allegations such as that, which have no basis to support them, really just make you look very small and silly.

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  11. 200 years ago the public used to pay a penny and go to the local lunatic asylum and poke the inmates for fun.
    Now we have people like CR and MTG to poke fun at.

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  12. Jaded - Yes, you can do it for free here.
    Do you think in 100 years time people will consider this to be cruel and inhumane?

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  13. Jaded's steadfast companion 'The Oik's Handbook of Etiquette' must provide some convention pertinent to a munificent host who charges nothing for conviviality.

    Permit me to be the first to suggest you are worth it, lex.

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  14. 1 2 3 he's back in the room.
    Mentally i'm running a stick up and down the bars of your cell Melvin.

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  15. "Mentally i'm running a stick up and down the bars of your cell"

    Bizarre delusions may have any subject matter but you can get help for them in the form of pills and/or Institutionalism, Jaded.

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  16. Melvin, according to WPC Jade D we ARE the same person. It never occurs to plodscum that more than one person may actually question their raison d'etre (kicking shit out of darkies, commies, the innocent). Lex you don't get it do you? Any refs I give will be deemed "wrong, incorrect & biased" by you. Now piss you to the "I" PCC.

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  17. The occasional fizzle inside Jaded's head should not concern us, Ciaran. She was the Fed Rep who campaigned for a Summer solstice allowance after hearing it was a really long day.

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  18. Dear Half-wits,I have never posted that you two are the same person,you keep getting quotes wrong.But don't let the truth get in the way of your idiocy.
    Having been zapped by both of them the only action I can take is to resign.Oh the shame of it!

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  19. Dear Ciaran,
    One step at a time please. Provide a reference - there is a whole interweb and numerous academic journals out there - and then maybe we might try to debate the subject.

    I can't believe that you have ever achieved any academic success with your repeated failure to evidence your arguments. None of my supervisors ever considered "It is 'cos I say so", "I heard it somewhere" and "I'm not telling you 'cos you might disagree" to be acceptable arguments.

    I would hope I am not alone in not confusing you and MTG. Melv at least appears to have a brain, and to his credit doesn't seem to stoop to picking up Sheffield Utd fans in some desperate search for popularity.
    The biggest dent to his credibility comes from his association with you.

    Tang0

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  20. If we were in a police state and the cops were jackbooted nazis itching to beat on people, surely going onto their blogs and calling them names would be kind of stupid?

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  21. Ciaran Broxted08 June, 2012 09:00

    Doh, I didn't think of that.

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  22. Tango admits to stalking me on Twitter!! One Nil (F/T) ACAB;))

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  23. Learned Council08 June, 2012 22:26

    You sad little man

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  24. It's the Internet, you don't get references on blogs.

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