Today NMP publishes its submission (below) to the Home Office's consultation launched in July on the use of police powers of stop and search.

Our evidence is based on a six-week project of rights education and training with young people conducted over the summer in youth clubs, community centres and public spaces in Newham, which included a survey questionnaire addressing key issues and questions posed by the consultation. The project was supported by the young people who are part of NMP's Youth Engagement Panel, which helped to design and test the questionnaire.

Newham Monitoring Project has received a report from a member of the public about suspected racial profiling in a security operation at Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford today.

It appears police and security guards are asking some members of the public to walk through a knife-arch metal detector (see right) before allowing them entry to Westfield. The person who contacted us had asked police officers how people were selected and was told it is 'random' but reported that it was almost exclusively young black and Asian males who were targeted.

If you have witnessed anything today in the area please get in contact with us as we would like to follow this up

This article was written Kevin Blowe, a long-standing Newham Monitoring Project supporter 

Yesterday, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that a three month dispersal zone had begun in the Stratford area, which "will specifically cover Stratford Town Centre, including the Magistrates' Court, the main transport hubs in Stratford and the areas along West Ham Lane commonly known as the West Quadrant".

Powers under the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 to move on groups of people congregating in the zone began on 27 April, exactly three months before the Olympics opening ceremony. The police rather coyly add that at the end of the current period, they will "review the intelligence gathered and will consider making application to Newham Council for a three month extension", but it is pretty obvious that an extension will happen automatically. Coupled with confirmation that "local residents and businesses will also notice a marked increase in police patrols" supported by the Met's specialist public order unit CO20 (the Territorial Support Group) and Newham council enforcement officers, this is clearly a clean-up operation in advance of the summer's Games.

So what does a dispersal zone involve in practice? Section 30 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act says that police officer or Police Community Support Officer has the power to order a group of two or more people to leave the area and, if they don't live within it, to ban them from returning for up to 24 hours. Refusing to comply with an officer's direction or not following the rules of the dispersal order can lead to arrest and charge, with a conviction potentially leading to a maximum penalty of three months' imprisonment and/or a fine of £5000.

In addition, officers have 'curfew' powers: young people aged under 16 are effectively prohibited from public spaces within the dispersal zone overnight, from 9pm to 6am, unless they are accompanied by a parent or a responsible adult over 18 years of age. An officer has the power to remove anyone within this age group that they find during these hours to their place of residence, unless there are "reasonable grounds for believing that the person would, if removed to that place, be likely to suffer significant harm."

Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRT) has shown that dispersal orders can have an impact on levels of crime and anti-social behaviour within a designated zone, although they risk displacing crime to the immediately surrounding neighbourhoods. Dispersal powers do, however, tend to have the impact of stigmatising all young people as potential perpetrators of anti-social behaviour, although they are most likely to be its victims:

Dispersal orders potentially criminalise youthful behaviour on the basis of the anxieties that young people congregating in groups may generate among other people. As such, the power is potentially less concerned with the agency of individuals than the assumptions that are made about what they might do.

For many, meeting friends and peers in local public spaces constitutes a fundamental aspect of developing their sense of identity and control, as well as providing space in which to forge their independent capacity to manage risk and danger. 

With the Olympics fast approaching, the underlying fear of young people from Newham scaring visitors and upsetting the drive for the 'perfect Games' does seem like the major motivation for creating a dispersal zone this early. It is as much about sending what JRT describes as a 'symbolic message' - mainly to stay away from public spaces in Stratford. The reality, though, is that this message is unlikely to succeed - many young (and not so young) people are are likely to head towards the area after 27 July, whether they have tickets for Olympic events or not, out of curiosity and excitement generated by the relentless publicity for the Games if nothing else.

However, when coupled with other stop & search and anti-terrorism powers and the huge number of police and private security around Newham over the summer, the dispersal zone is clearly seen by the Met as an important element in the expected lockdown of Stratford for the duration of the Olympics - one that could lead many young people to unexpectedly find themselves in court if they don't fully understand their rights.

Poet, writer and patron of Newham Monitoring Project Benjamin Zephaniah explains why it is important for young people in east London to know their rights on stop & search, especially during the 2012 Olympics.

That means carrying NMP's 24-hour emergency helpline number at all times - so go on, put the number [0800 169 3111] in your phone!


Publicity for our helpline during the Olympics is one part of our response to this summer's Games, when we aim to ensure that local people are aware of their civil liberties and have a way of seeking redress if they believe their rights have been ignored. We are also offering a basic rights information card, legal workshops for youth and community groups and, for the first time, trained Community Legal Observers near to event venues.

If you are interested in volunteering for NMP over the Olympic period, either as a Community Legal Observer or to help promote civil liberties in east London in other ways, please contact us.

This article by Estelle du Boulay appears issue 33 of Agenda, the magazine of Race on the Agenda (ROTA)

For a period of about twenty-four hours after the release of the Home Secretary’s report on the ‘Tackling Knives Action Programme’ in December 2008, the police tactic of using stop and search as an effective means of catching criminals seemed to finally to shaken off the controversy that has clung to it since criticism by the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry in 1998. Stop-and-search works, the government said. But within a day of ministers claiming a victory in its fight against a weapons-culture amongst young people, accusations were mounting of manipulation of the statistics. If stop and search is genuinely effective, critics asked, why spin the evidence? Where were the real figures to back it up the claims for its use?

However, whilst the answer may be important, not least to address concerns that too often statistics are used to justify policy rather than drive decision-making, allowing the dominant dialogue on stop and search to focus primarily on statistics diverts attention from the root problems that this police tactic presents at a community level; around issues of race discrimination and effectively combating crime.

Black communities have always suffered the brunt of police stop and search powers; from the days of the hated Sus laws - widely condemned for being used to racially profile – to the barely shifting statistic, highlighted recently by Doreen Lawrence on the 10 year anniversary of the Lawrence Inquiry Report: "There has been no long term drop in stop and search within the black community - today black people are seven times more likely to be searched - this is not progress." The cost of this is permanent tension between black communities and the police, with generations growing up accustomed to being the target of criminalisation and poor treatment. The conclusions of the Metropolitan Police Association Youth Scrutiny (2008) are hardly surprising in highlighting that initial negative experiences with police are formative in defining later attitudes towards police and authorities, an area that must be addressed.

Stop & Search - Effectiveness

The effectiveness of tackling crime through arbitrary stop and search compared to using intelligence-led policing is subject to much criticism. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 requires an officer to have ‘reasonable suspicion’ before stopping someone, the test being that any given person in the same circumstances could objectively have the same suspicion. This definition, designed to give the term some foundation beyond just being a mere hunch, is supposed to protect citizens and aide officers by providing clear boundaries. It follows a school of thought that without the power to act on suspicion, the ability of the police to investigate and solve crime would be severely marginalised. However, one need look no further than the tragic case of Jean Charles de Menezes to understand the inherent minefield of problems in defining ‘suspicious behaviour’; the innocent actions of Mr Menezes in boarding, then alighting, from a bus and using a mobile phone outside a tube station were the acts cited as suspicious during the surveillance operation that eventually resulted in him being shot dead. This grey area is also borne out by conviction statistics related to stop and search that rarely relate to the grounds for suspicion under which the stop originally occurred.

Accountability

Despite these systemic flaws, recommendation 66 of the Lawrence Inquiry (implemented in 2004) sought to at least to bring about police accountability for stops through the introduction of detailed receipts. Whilst receipts are a step in the right direction, determining whether a person’s behaviour can been described as suspicious, for instance ‘Mr X smelt of cannabis’, is notoriously difficult to either prove or dispute after the event and often comes down to a case of one person’s word against another. In the event of an arrest and a case going to Magistrates court, where typically several uniformed officers are giving evidence against a defendant, the weight of trust appears to be given routinely to the account of the officers. Against these odds, the average person is not only disadvantaged in any challenge of a police account but also likely to be discouraged from even raising it in the first place. Sadly, it is our experience at NMP that this is one of the primary reasons why people will refuse a receipt even when offered – they question the value of collecting a piece of paper recording what they felt was as an unfair stop when they perceive ‘the system’ as unable to provide them with any chance of redress.

Despite the fundamental problems around ‘reasonable suspicion’, being stopped and searched under PACE, with its minimal accountability, is now a better option compared to what has followed in recent years. Stops under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 require no reasonable suspicion and unsurprisingly have yet to result in a single person being charged with a terrorism-related offence. Section 60 of the Crime Justice and Public Order Act 1994, the legislation being used to tackle knife crime, allows stops to be carried out on anyone who happens to be in a designated area such as a tube station, is drawing comparisons to Sus laws in both its application and resentment it is causing in black communities.

Worrying developments to come are street policing measures during the 2012 Olympics in east London. During his time as Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner, Tarique Ghaffur was quoted as raising the prospect of armed US and Israeli police officers patrolling the streets of London during the Games.

Complaints

The reality is that it is very difficult to succeed in any complaint against a police officer. Lawrence Barker of the Police Action Lawyers Group states “IPCC statistics tell us that just 5% of complaints against the MPS that concluded last year were upheld. Despite significant concerns with the present system, the IPCC is seeking to reduce its supervisory involvement in the complaints process.” The recent case of comedian Mark Thomas, who successfully challenged the legality of a search because the grounds for suspicion were stated on his receipt as ‘looking over confident’, does little to inspire confidence even when a complaint is upheld. The action taken against the officer in his case was ‘words of advice’. This hardly sends out a message of discouragement to police who abuse their powers either unwittingly or otherwise.

Penalty Notices

A new trend affecting the territory of street stops and police complaints is the apparent increase in the issuing of Public Order Section 5 Penalty Notices. These on-the-spot penalty fines are commonly served on a person by an officer for ‘causing harassment, alarm or distress’ in a situation where there has been an altercation with the police. Challenging a penalty notice at a Magistrates court is seen as risky as it is likely to come down to one person’s word against another and the cost of losing can be a criminal record and an increased fine. The alternative is to accept the notice and pay the fine, which despite not resulting in a criminal record, is still perceived as an admission of guilt. An individual wishing to complain about police misconduct has severely limited chances of success with a penalty notice for ‘harassment, alarm and distress’ against their name. A cynical view of this situation is that they provide a fait-accompli to any officer wishing to eliminate the chances of a complaint being upheld against them. NMP has seen a marked increase in the issuing of these in the past two years and is currently working with a number of equally concerned law firms to investigate the usage of these.

Reality of experience

To truly understand stop and search it is vital to look at the real experience of people. At NMP we come into regular contact with a three strands of people from BME backgrounds who have experienced or are affected by stop and search: those who come to us directly for casework support to get advice or make a complaint (either the person themselves or a concerned friend or family member on their behalf); those we meet through community outreach work who share their experiences with us (for example participants in a training workshop from youth groups or refugee groups) and those we meet through randomly witnessing searches first-hand on the street (this is a personal choice that workers at NMP often take; to stay and observe a stop out of concern for the welfare of the person being stopped and to see if it is being carried out in accordance with the law). This allows our view to be informed by a broad spread of experiences, not only the ‘worst cases’ as might be expected from a monitoring organisation. Despite the differing circumstances in which we meet people and their differing attitudes towards the police as an institution, we find that perceptions and experiences of stop and search are almost entirely negative.

Firstly, from our own casework, experiences of police stops are often brutal. If we had received only one case of a person reporting being jumped from behind by either uniformed or plain clothes officers with no warning, this would be one too many. Unfortunately, the figure is higher. Sadly, reports of being taunted with racist jibes, pinned to the ground, beaten up and dragged across the pavement are not unusual. For NMP, a statistic that would be of real value would be the number of people who start out being randomly stopped by the police and end up either being treated in custody by a police doctor. Statistics for this however, are not available.

Secondly, from our community outreach work, the overwhelming impression we gain is disillusionment and distrust with police due to a sense of utter powerlessness felt in relation to stop and search. This is the greatest own goal in terms of police community relations, because a truly committed and effective approach to tackling crime relies on the trust, engagement and co-operation of these communities, who instead are alienated and feel targeted.

Thirdly, from stops witnessed on the street, these are too few (between 10 and 20) to confidently draw any conclusion of a ‘collective experience’, but a personal impression is that the dialogue during a stop plays great significance in how the situation develops and in shaping perceptions afterwards. Questions asked during a search, e.g: do you have a criminal record, carry the implication that they must be answered, even though they don’t and the language around acknowledging the right to a receipt, if it is offered at all, is often discouraging.

Fundamentally, there is still no evidence that randomly stopping and searching individuals has any impact on the crimes that worry BME communities and young people in particular. Knife crime and the perception that violence involving weapons is endemic are both increasing. Worse still, the moral panic about these issues have engendered have not led to a shift in the tactics used by the police – instead, police officers are encouraged to keep on stopping a growing number of people on the basis of that old excuse, ‘those who are innocent have nothing to fear’. Little consideration, beyond token concerns by bodies like the Metropolitan Police Authority, seems to be given to the long term impact of alienating large numbers of entirely law-abiding citizens who feel they are targeted due to their race, religious appearance or ethnicity.

Boris Johnson’s support of plans to increase police stop and search powers is “ill-considered and gung-ho” according to east London anti-racist organisation Newham Monitoring Project (NMP).

Whilst NMP welcomes GLA commitment to finding new ways to address gun and knife crime, it questions why the Mayor is not seeking to address the continued failure of controversial stop and search powers to effectively tackle crime.

A spokesperson for NMP today said:

“If Boris Johnson wishes to address gun and knife crime, he needs to first carefully examine why current police powers, which are some of the toughest in Europe, are failing to deal with this issue effectively. If the police do not have to apply reasonable suspicion, what grounds they will use to determine who they stop and search? Selecting individuals based on appearance and ethnicity is fundamentally flawed, will criminalise and alienate communities and is ultimately likely to fail like the hated Sus laws that were abolished in the 1980’s.

If the Mayor wishes to honour his election pledges he must not rush to try and impress voters in his first few weeks with an attempt at quick fix solutions and must address the underlying problems of community tensions with the police, particularly around racial profiling.

Black people continue to be 7 times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched and Asians twice as likely.* Statistics relating to prosecutions from stop and search continually demonstrate it is not an effective tool in tackling crime, particularly compared to intelligence-based policing. There is no evidence that extending these powers will make any positive difference or that the wider public will be any safer.

Our experience of working with young people over the past 25 years is that if you are a young black male you are likely to find yourself repeatedly stopped by the police when you are simply going about your day. Many of the people we talk to have been stopped in excess 20 times without any real justification and it has not led to any charges or prosecutions; surely this is hours of wasted police time. We have always argued that intelligence-based policing alongside real dialogue and engagement with communities is the best approach to building trust and addressing complex issues, whether that be gun and knife crime or tackling terrorism. We call on the Mayor to demonstrate his commitment to tackling crime by meeting with us and the local youth and community groups we work with to discuss and learn about the real experience and suggestions of Londoners in relation to this issue.”

* Stop and search figures from Ministry of Justice Data for 2006, released Oct 2007.

Notes for Editors:

Newham Monitoring Project, established in 1980, is an independent community-based organisation which supports people experiencing racial harassment and /or discrimination from statutory organisations. It is a leading campaigning voice around issues of racism/policing, best known for its work with the families of Stephen Lawrence, Jean Charles de Menezes and the Forest Gate terror-raid families.

The suggestion to stop young people because they are most likely to be “victims of, and the perpetrators of, a lot of these [sic: gun & knife] crimes” would lead to racial profiling and in effect be the ‘the reintroduction of the hated 'sus' laws’, say east London anti-racism campaigners Newham Monitoring Project (NMP).

NMP believes the suggestions of Keith Jarrett, president of the National Black Police Association, run the risk of criminalising a new generation of young people and becoming a new focus of resentment.

A spokeperson for NMP today said:

"Black communities continue to experience disproportionate targeting under stop & search causing tension and distrust of the police. Jarrett should be suggesting ways to engage with black communities, rather than alienate them further, to really fight gun and knife crime.

The Lawrence Inquiry found 'the perception and experience of minority communities that discrimination is a major element in the stop and search problem is correct.' This led to the introduction of mechanisms for police accountability - through recording and issuing receipts - in order to try and prevent the random stopping of individuals without any justifiable basis, or based merely on appearance. Now under the guise of the 'fighting gun and knife crime’, the NBPA seems determined to turn back the clock.

Statistics relating to prosecutions from stop and search continually demonstrate it is not an effective tool in tackling crime, particularly compared to intelligence-based policing. There is no evidence that extending these powers will make any positive difference or that the wider public will be any safer."

Notes to Editors

1. For more information, contact Estelle at Newham Monitoring Project on 020 8470 8333/ 07709 656 251
   
2. NMP is a leading independent anti-racist organisation in east london providing support to people around issues of race-hate crime, police misconduct and civil injustice. Recent work of NMP's includes being the main organisation supporting the families involved in the Forest Gate Raids and supporting the family of Jean Charles de Menezes.