Vol. 79/No. 13      April 13, 2015

One million stop and searches were carried out in England and Wales in 2013. Even according to official government statistics, around a quarter of those stops were illegal. Young blacks were six times as likely to be stopped as Caucasians.

Members of the audience, which was substantially young and black, described their experiences with arbitrary stops, harassment and brutality by the police. “I’ve been stopped seven times when I’m with my brothers,” Lashonte Myton told the meeting. “Once I was strip-searched in a police station. They never gave specific reasons.”

The meeting was organized by StopWatch, a group that promotes “effective, accountable and fair policing,” and hosted by Diane Abbott, the Labour Party Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. In the audience were community members, groups that monitor police practices, candidates in the May 7 general election and a few police officers.

Bradley and Leon Fields, who are active in the Shipman Youth Centre in East London, were on the platform. The center is part of a broader CitySafe project launched by Citizens UK to collaborate with police and local businesses to create “safe havens” for young people who come under threat in the streets, and to report crime. “Many young people don’t want to participate because of their experience with the police,” Bradley Fields said. “I don’t blame them.”

Some panelists urged young people to stand on their legal rights. “I’m all for knowing your rights,” responded Temi Mwale from the floor. “But police don’t respect our rights. If you talk back, they’ll say, ‘You’re a cocky one, aren’t you?’” Mwale heads up the group called Get Outta the Gang.

Terry Justice, president of the Dagenham and Rainham Conservative Association, challenged opponents of stop and search to propose alternatives. “It’s there to stop crime. Used properly, it’s an effective tool.”

“There’s no evidence stop and search helps fight crime,” Abbott replied, saying it should be replaced with “evidence-based techniques.”

“Stop and search is a microcosm of the attitudes of the state to people of color,” she argued. “Its roots are in the legacy of chattel slavery. No single issue has poisoned relations between the community and the police more.”

“Police are not there to fight crime,” Jonathan Silberman, the Communist League candidate in Hackney North and Stoke Newington, told the crowd, countering both Justice and Abbott. “When police harass young people with stop and search, including disproportionately targeting black youth, when there are deaths in police custody, when hundreds of innocent people are jailed under ‘joint enterprise’ laws and when police attack striking workers’ picket lines, that’s police doing their job for the propertied rulers. They act to push working people back, to cut down political space.”

“In the face of today’s crisis and the grinding erosion of living standards, jobs and safety, working people need space to discuss out a working-class alternative and organize to fight back,” he said. “This is a decisive issue for the labor movement as a whole.”

“There is no way to reform the police in the interests of the working class,” Silberman said. “But the resistance that’s been expressed is important. It points to the sort of struggle that’s needed. In today’s conditions, victories can be scored.” He pointed to the successful campaign to win a “jury of millions” that led to freedom in December 2014 for the Cuban Five, five Cubans imprisoned in U.S. jails for their efforts to defend the Cuban Revolution.

Rulers’ concern about police image

“But if we didn’t have stop and search, we would have to arrest more people,” Glynn said, adding recent measures introduced by Home Secretary Theresa May are “a step in the right direction.”

In August 2014 May announced a “Best Use of Stop and Search Scheme,” under which “no suspicion” stop and searches are curtailed and members of the public have the right to apply to accompany police officers on patrol. Police will record data on stops and make them public. If a police department gets over a certain number of community complaints, it would have to justify how and why they are using their powers.

Supporting May’s moves, the London Times editorialized, “The powers of stop and search are a waste of time and a drain on confidence in the police which, after a series of scandals, is already low.”

“Theresa May needs to be given some credit,” Abbott wrote in the Guardian last May, for her attempts to make progress on the misuse of stop and search.

Participants at the House of Commons meeting said the “Best Use” scheme means little on the ground. Estelle du Boulay, who works for the Newham Monitoring Project, pointed to the example of a young man who sought their help after sustaining 40 injuries in an encounter with the police. “Why would he even contemplate using the complaints system?” she asked.
 
 
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