[Closed] A warning to Red Light Jumpers

You still haven’t responded to my request for details of what the alleged racial abuse actually was. It may well be the police officer was behaving inappropriately, however I don’t have enough facts to make a judgement. Maybe you could provide some? Even then, I’d like to hear the policeman’s side of the story too.

Perhaps the policeman had been verbally abused by you and your drugs gang beforehand and was feeling very frustrated. I don’t know. They are human too and when confronted by people openly flouting the law and laughing about it it’s not surpising they occasionally lash out verbally.

As for the abuse itself, personally I don’t regard (alleged) racist abuse as any better or any worse than any other verbal abuse. Abusing anyone is a rather unpleasant thing to do. I’ve been “racially” abused too, but I didn’t let it get to me. Names mean nothing really. If it happends to you in future, what to do is take a deep breath, walk away, have a beer (a legal drug), chill out and remember that by not abusing them back you are the better person. You’re obviously an intelligent chap, so don’t let things get to you.

a reality that you are not tuned in to.

Not read all of that crime stats report but just a thought- have the figures been 'corrected' or analysed according to social demographic?

Without that, the data might just be a reflection of the demographic that tends to get stopped by coppers for 'low level street crime'...

for example you don't get too many coppers chasing Giles from the Investment bank or whatever down the street when he's 'stolen' taxpayers income

Just a thought?

Den~Dennis - the report is about stop and search. Not chasing people that have committed crimes, not low level street crime. Itscops taking someone off the street and searching them. they are supposed to have reasonable suspicion to do so. However they stop 6 times as many blacks as whites

TJ, step away from your keyboard. Go outside. Ride your bike.

I am just back in. Its wet out there.

i post this purely for the laugh as i know or at least hope it is well out of date.:
The following extract is from a Police Training Manual by David Powis, Deputy Assistant
Commissioner to the Metropolitan Police. What does it show about the way police
stereotype people as potential offenders and therefore label them as suspicious.
The following indices of suspiciousness emerge:
Young people generally, but especially in cars (and even more so if in
groups in cars)!!!
People in badly maintained cars, especially are they have tatty, dog-eared
licence.
People of untidy, dirty appearance – especially those with dirty shoes
(even manual workers, if honest, he says, are clean and tidy)
People who are unduly nervous, confident or servile in police presence
(unless they are doctors, who are usually naturally confident)
People whose appearance is anomalous in some way – e.g. their clothes are not as
smart as their car.
People in unusual family circumstances
Political radicals and intellectuals, especially if they spout extremist
babble, and are in possession of a ‘your rights’ card (as supplied by
NCCL) these people are also particularly likely to make unjust accusations
against the police.
NORMAL PEOPLE
Normal unsuspicious people are those outside the above categories,
especially if they are of smart conventional appearance (which commands
natural authority and respect) and even more so if they smoke a pipe!!!!!!
These points add up to a fairly clear-cut picture: respectable, unsuspicious people
conform to extremely conventional middle-aged, middle-class/respectable working
class modes of appearance, lifestyle and political belief. Anything else is suspicious,
and the further it deviates from that model, the more suspicious it becomes.

Much the same as motor insurance companies, then.

Ah, OK! Hope you had a good ride, looks like a moist time of it in Scotchishland! 🙂

The fact is that police man should not have arrested this man. Actions like this which are regular within large cities simply should not happen. He did not commit an offence, further, a lady did the same thing at the same time & did not suffer the same action.

No wonder that there's a poor attitude towards the police in certain circles, not just criminal circles.

TandemJeremy - Member

Den~Dennis - the report is about stop and search. Not chasing people that have committed crimes, not low level street crime. Itscops taking someone off the street and searching them. they are supposed to have reasonable suspicion to do so. However they stop 6 times as many blacks as whites

I see-
As i haven't read report (oviously) can you let me know if they are stopping 6 times as many blacks as white relative to the whole country or relative to the neighbourhood they are doing the stopping in?

For example, in a 'predominantly white' low socio economic neighbourhood (eg govan?), are there 6 times as many blacks as white stopped and searched....?

Not being silly, just wondering if that sort of thing is allowed for in the stats? 😕

Again, for the avoidance of doubt, I'm not suggesting that there's not a element of racism in the cop force, but I'm alluding to whether or not the stats simply show (albeit skewed a bit by whatever racism there is) how the population demographics are split in terms of wealth/ whether or not you are comfortably middle class with your pony etc...

The fact is that police man should not have arrested this man... He did not commit an offence

Rule 69 (dude!) of [url= http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/DG_069837 ]The Highway Code[/url] would disagee. Unless you're saying he didn't run a red light?

TJ, I’m not disputing for one minute the report’s findings that the police stop roughly six times the amount of one type of person than another. That’s an easily identifiable fact. An objective conclusion if you will.

However the report then goes on to draw the conclusion that it is because the police are racist. That is a subjective conclusion. There could be various reasons for the statistic in question. For example if one section of society commits six times as many (of a particular type of) crime, then it’s perfectly logical for the poice to stop those type of people six times as often. Not racism, but simple efficient use of police time.

However the report does not consider any conclusion other than the one they have chosen to draw. I conclusion, I should add, that they were almost certain to draw, given the nature of their organisation.

Their’s isn’t good research; it’s research with a pre-determined conclusion. A good researcher considers all the facts.

At best it's bad science, at worst it's police bashing.

kenny = no - they consider other explanations and debunk them. Tehy specifically debunk the 6 times more crime one.

this is a statutory body with legal responsibilities. Its not a micky mouse outfit. They do not have an agenda.

TandemJeremy - Member

kenny = no - they consider other explanations and debunk them.

such as factoring in relative social demographics/income/education for where the stop and searches were being carried out?

sorry, still havent read it yet 😀

Where in the report to they quote crime figures? I've admittedly only skimmed through it, but can't see anything. However the figures I quoted on violent crime earlier on this thread seem to suggest the x6 thing is actually wildly under, not over.

As I've said before, I've no roblem with being proved wrong on this (I'm often wrong about things and happy to admit it), however the figures I see don't seem to stack up against the conclusions the report draws.

If they had simply printed the stats and not drawn their own conclusions from them that would have been better.

no - they consider other explanations and debunk them

apologies for going back to this, but have at least now skim read the report's salient points and tried to look in detail at how they analyse the data 😛

I can't find any mention of debunking the possible skewing due to black/ethnic people tending to live 'disproportionately' in the 'deprived' areas when compared to the overall 'white' spread across the uk.

could the figures in the report simply be expressing that cops tend to stop and search a lot more in deprived neighbourhoods?

It does amuse me that folk on here with little grasp of the issues can skim thru the report and decide its bunkum. This is a well considered piece of work based on a lot of hard data from a reputable organisation that has a statutory basis - yo know they can act and enforce recommendations on the basis of these reports? it has to be valid and rigorous.

read the case study on pg 18

Several explanations have been advanced
as to the extent and consistency of race
disproportionality in stop and search,
including theories that the data are
inaccurate, that black people commit more
crime, or that they are more ‘available’ to
be stopped and searched than white
people. In this report we examine these
arguments and find them inadequate: even
taken together, they do not explain or
justify the extent and persistence of the
problem of race disproportionality.

In areas outside London, stop and
search is used less frequently but even
more disproportionately against black
and Asian people (see tables A1-2). The
highest disproportionality ratios for black
compared to white people were in Dorset
(12.5), Hampshire (11.5), Essex (9.5) and
Norfolk (9.0).

There is a breeakdown by london burghough pg 27

Thanks TJ, and I've read those bits, they don't appear to address the point I'm getting at.
For example, say in a massively simplified Dorset there was 1 deprived area, populated 50% ethnic/50% white. The searches all occurred in the deprived area- that would show a massive skew in relation to the whole county, no? (BTW I Know dorset is not populated that way)

edit and London borough have a broad mix so breakdown by borough is not even that useful

Well done for quoting a bit where they assert that they've debunked the other explanations, TJ. I think we've all agreed that it makes that claim.

In this report we examine these
arguments and find them inadequate:

Sorry, but that is bunkum. They don't examine the arguments, they just dismiss them out of hand without any justification other than "we're right and that's that".

TJ, earlier in this thread I quoted official figures that came via the Freedom of Information act. Despite prompting, you haven't once commented on them.

Part of my job is to do with analysing data and drawing conclusions. However those conclusions need to be based on hard evidence. I ask you again, show me the part where they have quoted actual crime figures. Simply stating something over and over again, as this report does, isn't very scientific.

Kenny - I suggest you read it and find out - all the data is there. You have an very closed mind to this - you have decided the conclusions are wrong and grasp at straws to find them wrong without actually reading it properly. Yo are determined to find bias in this well respected independent atatutory based body.

Why do they have to quote actual crime figures - although they do run some discussion of this including a breakdown of crime by ethnicity- this is about stop and search

Page 54

There are no robust measures of general
crime rates and how these vary among
different ethnic groups. One of the most
commonly used measures is the arrest rate.
In England and Wales, 82 per cent of the
people arrested for criminal offences are
white, 9 per cent are black and 5 per cent
are Asian.32 Black people are therefore
more likely to be arrested than would
be expected from their numbers in the
population, especially for specific offences
such as robbery.33

all the data is there

Yo are determined to find bias in this well respected independent atatutory based body

I don't have a closed mind on this. I don't doubt for one minute that more black people than white are stopped by the police. I don't doubt the report's figures one bit.

What I object to is them refusing to consider that there is any other possible reason for this than pure police racism. If the report can show me figures to prove this then I'll happily accept them.

In London last year 67% of people the police took action against over gun crime were black. For robbery it was 59%. However just over 12% of the population is black. Equally, black people are more likely than white to be the victims of crime. Yet in trying to prevent this the police are dismissed by reports like this as being racist.

To my mind, producing a report like this actually increases the distrust between the two sides, and can in fact make the cancer of racism worse. It reduces the respect for authority and gives many of the rioters some dubious justification for their actions.

You ask why they should have to quote actual crime figures? Well simply put, it's because those figures are quite possibly the reason for the discrepancies in stop and search figures.

If anything TJ, you are more in danger of being of being "closed minded" over this, by seemingly accepting the conclusions drawn by this report without considering the possibility they could be wrong.

Kenny = you just don't get the point at all. You are desperate to prove its not racism that you miss the point totally - and your mind is completely closed on this. Pointless discussing it with you. It is illegal to search black people because they are black. Full stop. It is discrimination. Read the case study on page 18 to show that its the disproportionate use of stop and search that causes problem.

Open your mind.

when making the decision to
stop and search police officers are legally
obliged to have ‘reasonable suspicion’
that the person involved has committed
an offence. Reasonable suspicion must be
based on objective evidence in each case
rather than generalised beliefs about the
behaviour of people from particular social
or racial groups.

Kenny - unlike you I understand the issues. that the difference.

It is illegal to search black people because they are black. Full stop. It is discrimination

As for closed minds - kennyp has a very good point about your uncritical acceptance of the report's conclusions for which there is insufficient evidence.

unlike you I understand the issues. that the difference.

So TJ, you think that one case history proves a point? Want to know how it’s done ? What happens is you interview 50 people and get 50 different stories. You find the one that suits the point you’re trying to prove and print it. The other 49 get thrown away. Then people like you read the report and accept that one case study as being gospel truth.

But as as you seem quite happy to have a case study prove a point, here’s another for you. I’ve had a chat with a young black guy who works for our company. He says he’s never been stopped and searched. He did suffer some unpleasant (and inexcusable) racist name calling at school, but he says it was only from a tiny minority of people and most folk didn’t seem to care what colour he was. He worked hard, got good grades, went to university and now has a good job. He’s never been in trouble with the police, but then again he’s never committed any crime (though I have described his musical tastes as criminal in the past). He’s a very pleasant young chap with no chips on his shoulder. He’s working hard and getting on in life.

So, is his case study any more representative than the one this report uses to prove how racist the nasty old police are?

probably a lost cause Kenny. Some folk just aren't able to question the massive generalisations made in the maths to get to seemingly 'scientific' numbers. They must be right cos they go down to decimal points and everything.
Look at TJ's quote above of p54- the use of 'therefore' is hugely unjustified in logic of that context.

Btw I'm not necessarily disputing the overall premise or sentiment of the report, just that the direct logic it claims does not work for the evidence and analysis given. *Still labouring* my point is that (sadly) most black folk live in deprived/'forgotten' areas. This is where the stop and searches are carried out. Po Po doesn't stop and search for tax fraud.

Now if I were to question an independet report on, I dont know, off the top of me head, for example the effects of branding/visual marketing on society, would I be silly to do so? everyone knows what a huge effect that has, right?

I agree it's pretty much a lost cause. He seems so determined to be certain the police are nasty and racist that he's blind to all other evidence. Sad.

You still haven’t responded to my request for details of what the alleged racial abuse actually was. It may well be the police officer was behaving inappropriately, [b]however I don’t have enough facts to make a judgement[/b].

That hazzunt stopped you though...

As for the abuse itself, personally I don’t regard (alleged) racist abuse as any better or any worse than any other verbal abuse.

Right, ok then. 🙄

TBh seems like you've made yer mind up already on the 'type of person' I am, and your prejudiced judgemental attitude is seeping through the cracks in your attempt to appear all objective and that. You're creating scenarios in your head based on bugger all knowledge, yet then claiming not to be judgmental. Don't make me laugh.

[b]Perhaps[/b] the policeman had been verbally abused by you and your [b]drugs gang[/b] beforehand

😆