The latest organisation embarking on what appears to be a national apology tour is the police. The force has decided it is time to ditch the rainbow epauletted uniform, don sackcloth and ashes and seek forgiveness for the rampant and pervasive racism infecting the very soul of the institution.
Ostensibly aimed at tackling discrimination and unfairness in the way black people are treated, the National Police Chiefs Council has launched a Police Race Action Plan. Chief Constables Andy Marsh and Sir Dave Thompson — authors of the plan’s foreword — have said they are “ashamed” of the continuing racism among officers. The plan promises a “zero-tolerance” policy when it comes to racism in the police force. Officers will have to undergo mandatory training and education on black history. I haven’t seen the official curriculum but I am sure it will include an objective and balanced lecture on the transatlantic slave trade. And as our Eurocentric vision of history dictates, it is the one and only example of slavery that has ever existed.
At first glance it would appear the police are stuck in the ‘90s. It has been close to a quarter of a century since the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence. The subsequent report by Lord Macpherson was scathing. It labelled the Metropolitan Police “institutionally racist.” A label Thompson believes many people still believe today.
When it comes to claims of institutional racism, the argument is often framed around the police’s use of stop and search. According to some, black people are stopped nine times more than white people.
For the record, I am not the biggest fan of stop and search. I do not like my liberty being interfered with by an excessive and overbearing state. But freedom isn’t unlimited. Rights have to be carefully balanced. The freedom to go about your business both peacefully and safely must be sensibly weighed against the right not to be harassed by the police. To get all Isiah Berlin, its negative versus positive liberty.
Let me be clear, when it comes to stop and search, the police response is an operational reaction to the increased use of bladed weapons in fatal stabbings. And London, home of the Metropolitan Police, is a violent place. Homicide in London has reached a 13 year-high —with 74.4 percent of murders caused by knives. It’s an uncomfortable fact but black British Londoners account for 45 per cent of the capital’s knife murder victims and 61 per cent of all knife murder perpetrators.
To be blunt, the police carry out these stops in areas with a preponderance of violent crime. When you combine the available population where crime is predicted to happen with the likely profile of offenders and victims, a young black man in Lewisham is more likely to be stopped than a 75-year-old white woman. There’s nothing “racist” about this, it’s common sense policing. It could very well save a life. Perhaps the parent of a young black teenager in London and not a pen-pushing progressive police chief wants more stop and search, not less.
To be fair, the police are caught in a difficult position. Too lenient and they invoke the ire of the right, too harsh and the Guardian will devote a thousand column inches to disparaging the force as a white supremacist relic in need of immediate defunding. In truth the police are not to blame for the growing violence on our streets. Black men being stopped on the street is the culmination of a number of different factors. There are no easy answers and more often than not it raises uncomfortable cultural questions about the importance of parenting and positive male role models — 43 per cent of black African and an astonishing 63 percent of black Caribbean children grow up in lone-parent households. Without a father in the home young males often seek solace in the protection of gangs. If we lack the courage to have an honest debate about this, we risk letting down a generation of young black Britons.
There will always be a number of prejudiced officers. But to argue that the police force is institutionally racist is absurd. No amount of plans or enforced groupthink ideology will dissuade the most ardent of bigots from acting like Neanderthals. If an officer acts inappropriately, sanction them or kick them out. Just don’t subject thousands of people to what amounts to virtue signalling on a grandiose scale. Treating individuals as potential racists, no doubt replete with “white fragility”, and you end up treating people differently according to their skin colour. Ironically, something the plan wishes to eliminate.
It has become somewhat of a truism that progressive ideology adheres to the law of unintended consequences. Rather than bring people along, this will alienate aspiring young people from ethnic minorities from joining the police force.
The plan is out for public scrutiny before it is updated in December. I have an idea. Ditch this stupid attempt at political pandering, drop the identity politics and treat people with respect.
If you need a plan to do that, then maybe the police is not the right career for you.
