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Whose cops are more racist, America’s or the Brits'?

Glen Ford | 27.10.2010 22:51 | Analysis | Anti-racism | Repression | Sheffield | World

In any global battle of the racists, the U.S. and Britain are always top contenders. A new study has some putting odds on merrily racist Old England (and Wales) for the honor of white supremacist society in-chief. “The figures would seem to indicate that Blacks in England and Wales are targeted by police with even more ferocity than their counterparts in New York City.” But the Big Apple takes a back seat to no one, when it comes to bigoted police behavior on the streets.




Editorial note: In any global battle of the racists, the U.S. and Britain are always top contenders. A new study has some putting odds on merrily racist Old England (and Wales) for the honor of white supremacist society in-chief. “The figures would seem to indicate that Blacks in England and Wales are targeted by police with even more ferocity than their counterparts in New York City.” But the Big Apple takes a back seat to no one, when it comes to bigoted police behavior on the streets.

_________________________


Whose Cops are More Racist, America’s or the Brits'?

by Glen Ford, 26 October 2010


“Blacks in England and Wales are 26 times more likely to be stopped and frisked on the streets than whites.”

The United States criminal justice system has been called the most racist on the planet. And, by most measures, that’s true. But Blacks in Great Britain are also under siege by police – enough to generate a recent visit to London by Rev. Jesse Jackson. A new study shows that Blacks in England and Wales are 26 times more likely to be stopped and frisked on the streets than whites, a figure that Rev. Jackson said “undermines the moral authority” of the United Kingdom. It would be hard to criticize the analysis for sloppiness; it was conducted by the London School of Economics, in collaboration with the Open Society Justice Initiative.

On the face of it, the figures would seem to indicate that Blacks in England and Wales are targeted by police with even more ferocity than their counterparts in New York City, where a similar stop-and-frisk campaign has scooped up progressively larger numbers of Blacks and Latinos in recent years. In England, Section 60 of the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act was originally promulgated to deal with rowdy soccer hooligans, most of whom are white, but has in recent years turned into a mechanism to disproportionately stop Blacks on the streets.

New York City’s stop-and-frisk regime has drastically escalated under billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has also dramatically ramped up the pace of gentrification. Strong pressures also exist in England to contain the non-white population.

“U.S. cops stop a much higher percentage of the people – about 25 times as many per capita.”

But, are the police in England and Wales really more viciously racist than New York City cops? With Black Brits 26 times more likely to be stopped than whites, while Black New Yorkers are only 9 times more likely, one might conclude that the English cops behave in a more racist manner. But the sheer numbers of stop-and-frisks in New York City may say otherwise. In 2009, only about 150,000 people were stopped on the streets in all of England and Wales, home to 54 million people. New York City has 8 million residents, less than one-sixth the size of England and Wales, but its cops stopped nearly 600,000 people, four times as many, the vast majority of them Black and Latino.

The conclusion: When English cops stop someone on the street, it is more likely to be a Black person than a white – more likely than when New York cops make a stop: 26 to 1 versus 9 to 1. But U.S. cops stop a much higher percentage of the people – about 25 times as many per capita. What that would tend to indicate is, that a Black Brit might think he had it bad in England, but he'd be more likely to get picked out to be stopped and searched on the streets of New York, because of the sheer volume of stops in the Big Apple.

The same applies to prison. The Black-white incarceration ratio is worse in Britain than it is in the United States. But the U.S. imprisons four times as many people per capita as the Brits do and holds a full 3 percent of the Black U.S. population behind bars. For Blacks in Britain, it's only 1 percent. So yes, it's true: the U.S. does have the most racist criminal justice system in the world. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.

Glen Ford
- e-mail: Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
- Homepage: http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/whose-cops-are-more-racist-america%E2%80%99s-or-brits

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

More discrimination

28.10.2010 12:02

What about ageism? I bet the fascists stop far more young people in the so-called 'fight against street crime' than they do say, over 80s.
Bastards.

vigilancia


oh dear - im glad you lot arnt in charge

28.10.2010 22:11

This is where the naivety of not understanding how profiling comes in:

Lets look at the facts:
1. Statistics, in the UK, the percentage of black people who commit crimes is higher than white people. Source: The police released this data once and now fail to for fear of it being used by right-wing groups. However, it is still a fact.

2. Younger people commit more street crime than old people in their 80s

Therefore, as a policeman, you would best spend your resources (ie. time) investigating crimes relating to young black people rather than old white people to be most effective in reduces crime numbers.

I mean come on.... its not rocket science!

twit


Contrarywise

29.10.2010 11:57

I was actually quite surprised we were anywhere near America on this scale. It's easier to fear the 'other' in less integrated areas for sure, so part of it is, in this system, natural. Apart from that, living in poor areas, as is common with a lot of minorities tends to create more of a gang culture and violence, yes, but this is also hyped by the media, as is terrorism and even police watch the news. Again living in a violent area theft and property crime is more common. And that makes perfect sense, especially in such a material world where you want to show you can afford the same shoes as everybody else. Depending on the victim to this crime, I'm not Hugely bothered about non violent property crime personally. Till it happens to me. If I'm honest. The thing that black people are most likely to get caught for however, is drug crime. Both here and there. And actually, on random searches, White people who get searched are much more likely to be carrying drugs. However because Black people are targeted more, a lot more are found to have it, and this perpetuates the idea that they do it more, or that it's more of a problem when poor black people do drugs but a recreational activity when middle class White people do it. Could probably be applied to a few other things.

Anchoredwunderlust


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