This has to stop, but I doubt it will.

[OverTheRainbow88]

“According to the figures, Black people in Bristol and Somerset were 6.4 times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people last year.

That's despite Black people being only slightly more likely to be arrested if they are stopped.
Of the Black people that were stopped in Avon and Somerset last year, 17% were then arrested - compared to 15% of white people.”

www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/black-people-bristol-somerset-64-4646894

Ugh - first attempt at using the quote feature, and it didn't go quite the way I was expecting...

@flaviaritt

You seem to give your opinion with considerable authority, @flaviaritt.

I’m sorry? Are you Lady Catherine de Bourgh? I’ll give whatever opinion I want.

Of course you will. But the combination of confidence, ignorance and complacency in your posts is quite marked. I wondered what gave you such confidence in your opinions?

Of course you will. But the combination of confidence, ignorance and complacency in your posts is quite marked. I wondered what gave you such confidence in your opinions?

I don’t know whether the officers in question are racist or not because I don’t have enough information to make that judgement. It strikes me that the over-confident people in this conversation are those who are filling in the gaps in the information with their own assumptions, not those saying they don’t know.

If many cops are stopping and searching at a more reasonable rate for their area, it just means that the others are really bad.

So it could be that in many areas, the rate is reasonably fair, and in a few areas it's quite dramatically unfair? I think it would be good to know if that's the case, because if some local forces are doing it right, then the ones who are getting it wrong can be fixed by doing the same things. Of course we don't actually know this, but I suppose that's why we need more data before we can say exactly what the problem is and how to fix it.

@queenofknives So it could be that in many areas, the rate is reasonably fair, and in a few areas it's quite dramatically unfair?

I would be very surprised if every officer had identical behaviour, so I'd also expect some variation between stations within a given region.

However.

If, overall, 6% stops are of black people and the expected rate is nearer 1%, consider this. If you're a non-racist cop and you stop 100 people, one of them will be black. If I'm a racist cop, then in order to have the observed average of six black people per hundred, I must have stopped 11 in the hundred I stopped (so the total is twelve black people stopped out of our joint two hundred - 6%). If there are three cops acting fairly to my one racist, I must be stopping 21 black people per hundred. If there are nine acting fairly, I must be stopping 51 black people per hundred. And what are the non-racist cops doing when I'm hauling in black people fifty times more frequently than them?

So yes, there's doubtless some variation. But the more cops you assume are acting fairly in their own direct interactions with the public, the more you have to assume that the bad apples are really bad. And the more you have to assume that the "good" apples are turning a blind eye to it.

But the more cops you assume are acting fairly in their own direct interactions with the public, the more you have to assume that the bad apples are really bad.

Well this might be the case. The statistics only tell us so much and can be interpreted in different ways. I think we need to know, really, exactly what's going on to create these figures, because then we will be able to stop it. I think it's really important to actually have this data, because otherwise we can easily end up providing 'solutions' that don't do anything to actually fix the problem. In other words, we need to understand what's creating the problem first. I disagree with the OPs doubts that unfair stop and search wil never end... I think we can definitely end it, but to do it we need to look at it much more closely and drop assumptions about what's causing it. It's within our power to actually find this out and stop it.

I actually apologise for the actual number of times I said 'actually' in that post...

But it is a fact that (for example) more knife crime in London is committed by black teens

Where's the evidence for that? Because I'm willing to bet it's highly likely that white teens committing the SAME crimes simply aren't "caught" because they aren't considered a realistic possibility as suspects because of an officially recognised institutionally racist police force.

I've seen various reports and heard from friends in London of white teens and young males committing knife crime and getting away with it!

Black and Asian women ARE more likely to be searched at airports too.

Just google it and there's tons of articles and research

What I said was “Without knowing why, it’s hard to say...”

But we DO know why most of the time - racist cops!

@AwaAnBileYerHeid Friends of mine have been stopped and searched and TOLD the reason they were stopped was because they

Were wearing a hat - in winter!
Were wearing a Yarmulke
Were wearing a hijab
Were a non white person in a predominantly white area - they were a GP visiting a patient and had their medical bag with them
Were wearing "expensive" trainers - I was actually with that one and wearing the same trainers which weren't actually expensive!

This does not surprise me at all what @SimonJT is saying, it saddens and infuriates me on his behalf and I find it bloody embarrassing as a white person!

Perhaps all referrals to CPS should be ‘colour blind’ to ensure that the evidence is reviewed without seeing the person’s name and colour.

I'd absolutely support that. Give them case numbers only, no names, no description that would display the likely race or ethnic background

Certainly I've said on here before that job applications should be done with the employer merely having a reference number when first assessing applications, qualifications but no school, college or university names (certain schools are affiliated with religion or are known to be "posh" etc there's absolutely no need for school names to be known when we have standardised exams in this country)

@CherryPavlova your post at 0938 overall spot on - but merely a start really so much needs to change

@queenofknives absolutely NOT, not even going to quote that offensive comment, how disgustingly insulting! Merely sticking up for a friend as I would for any friend being treated unjustly for any reason, it's just that in those particular incidents which I referenced as relevant to the thread happened to be due to
racism/bigotry. I would feel utterly ashamed if in those situations I said nothing and let my friends be treated badly without any challenge

@Ilovemypantry Maybe mainly because they're not being stopped for discriminatory reasons? That the stops were understandably justified but the person was then found to be non suspicious?

It might be that they tend to stop more of a certain type of car. If more BAME people buy those cars, more of them would be stopped.

Has it occurred to you they might be stopping cars preferred by non white people BECAUSE they're preferred by non white people?

@flaviaritt you're really clutching at straws. From your comments in the above post you're basically saying non white people shouldn't

Drive certain cars
Be walking in certain areas even if they live in them!
Be out and about at certain times of day/night

@caringcarer

I very rarely drink. I have been stopped and asked to blow into a breathalizer when I had no alcohol that evening. I was apparently driving very slowly. That would be I was not speeding in an area with a primary school even late at night and many other cars were. I told the police I had not been drinking, they did not believe.me. I did the breathalizer and was proved to be telling the truth. I did not run or resist taking the breathalizer. I did not argue I just did exactly as I was told to do. I was proved innocent. Then I went on my way.

What if you were stopped 3 times a week, every week, and your friends were never stopped at all. What if the only difference between you and your friends was your skin colour? Would you continue to approach every stop with the same cooperation and laid back attitude?

@SimonJT

People who are non-white are stopped much more

So why don’t we hear of them complaining?

Graphista

Apologies, I should have said knife murders.
You are correct that there is no way of knowing how many white youths may be carrying a knife.

@SpeverendRooner

If I were a cop, those numbers would make me think like this:

95.4% of the population is white and 0.9% black in the South West, according to the 2011 census. If a black person is 6.4 times more likely to be stopped than a white person, that means that (6.4x0.9)/(6.4x0.9+95.4) = 6% of stops are of black people. So a cop in the South West might think (correctly) that they stop seventeen white people for every black person - and they might therefore think (incorrectly) that they're not discriminating against black people. An equal rate would be 95.4/0.9, or about 106 white people for every black person. That is something I would reflect on.

But there's a deeper problem. An equal rate might not be desirable. I think it is reasonable that you might focus more resources on stopping and searching a demographic who are more likely to be doing something arrestable (that point's certainly arguable, but it's not completely unreasonable). So an urgent question for a cop is, do they believe that black people are such a demographic? If they don't believe that, then what non-racist justification is there for a six times higher rate of stopping and searching? If, on the other hand, they do believe that, then the difference in criminality has to be enormous to justify a factor of six difference in stop and search rates. But the success rate of a stop and search is almost identical - 15% vs 17%. If they simply stopped and searched people at random and black people were enormously more likely to be criminal, then they'd get a much higher success rate from stop and search of black people than white. But they don't. The difference is tiny. So if they want to believe that black people are far more likely to be criminals they also have to believe that their ability to pick criminals out of the population is far worse for black people than white - and that would be unjustifiable discrimination again. That's also something I'd reflect on.

So my point is that, unless these figures are a complete fabrication (and if you believe that I challenge you to find the correct ones), I cannot see an explanation that doesn't involve racial discrimination: either cops are inappropriately targeting the black population or they suck at identifying black street criminals in a way they don't with white ones.

You would have see if the numbers could be accounted for in other ways, which is entirely possible.

For example, we all know that there is a correlation around being poor and being black, and in some places it's pretty significant. There could also be correlations between being involved in crime and being poor. Or it could be that more black citizens live in poor neighbourhoods, and there is a greater police presence in poor neighbourhoods.

You could also look at the demographics of crime. In the US for example, black men are statistically much more likely to be involved in serious crime. That's not some kind of racist supposition, it's just the numbers. If that is true, you would be expecting to see more police interactions with black men.

Another possibility would be places where there is a lot of gang violence and they are organised ethnically.

So yes - there are reasons there could be statistical variance besides racist police officers. Those were just four that I've seen off the top of my head. The difficulty is that unless you have more granular data, you can't get to that information with the kinds of stats the OP gave.

@Smileyaxolotl1 thank you, but we also can't truly know if the stats on stabbings and killings are accurate as we know there is also bias/prejudice in terms of arrests and prosecutions etc

Meaning the stats are all fundamentally unreliable

If you want your black son to come home alone, agree with stop and search news.sky.com/story/black-murder-victims-and-suspects-london-v-uk-11443656

If you want your white son to come home, support stop and search news.sky.com/story/black-murder-victims-and-suspects-london-v-uk-11443656

[quote Ilovemypantry]**@SimonJT

People who are non-white are stopped much more

So why don’t we hear of them complaining?[/quote]
We hear it a lot, people in this thread have spoken about it, its often discussed in the news, in magazine/newspaper articles, there have been entire TV shows about it.

You’ve genuinely never hears about non-white people discussing racially profiling in stop and search?

[quote Ilovemypantry]**@SimonJT

People who are non-white are stopped much more

So why don’t we hear of them complaining?[/quote]
I do. And if you‘d care to listen or look for people objecting, so would you. These are all very worth viewing/reading:

A black former police officer speaks. It’s worth listening through the Met officer’s interview to hear Sayce Holmes-Lewis at the end who is trying to work with police:

www.channel4.com/news/met-police-are-in-their-own-bubble-and-think-theyre-doing-a-great-job-community-activist-sayce-holmes-lewis-on-stop-and-search

A black barrister speaks about interactions with the police. I’ve included an extract from this as a photo:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/22/police-black-people-trust-barrister-policing-consent

The Avon and Somerset race relations advisor speaks of his own experiences with the force:

www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/exclusive-judah-adunbi-didnt-give-2096279.amp

That video jumps to part way through - to hear the experiences of the black former police officer just rewind to the beginning, @Ilovemypantry. (It’s not called rewind anymore is it? Christ I’m feeling old!)

@SimonJT

I think I may have inadvertently highlighted the wrong sentence in my previous reply which obviously changes the whole nature of my point 🤦‍♀️.

I was referring to the fact that white people get stopped and searched by police too, and yet we don’t seem to hear of them complaining about it. As I said previously, they are stopped, searched ( many for seemingly random reasons), they are dealt with and they are arrested, or maybe not, and they move on and go about their business.

Other posters have pointed me in the direction of articles/videos about non-white people being stopped and searched (understandably as I quoted incorrectly).

I would still like to see evidence (articles/videos) of white people complaining or being represented when they are stopped and searched for whatever reasons.

@Ilovemypantry

White people aren’t disproportionately stopped and searched.

They aren’t stopped and searched because they are black

They aren’t 6 times more likely to be stopped than others

They haven’t been discriminated against for their skin colour for generations and generations

The police was found to be institutionally racist after the SL inquiry, the rates of stop and search hasn’t changed that much since then.

34% YABU, tells you everything you need to know about MN and modern Britain.

If it was the YABU voters kids being far more likely to be stopped and searched, having experienced it multiple times, and every time having been doing nothing wrong, they wouldn't be voting that way.

34% YABU, tells you everything you need to know about MN and modern Britain

Depressing, isn't it

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@Ilovemypantry

White people aren’t disproportionately stopped and searched.

They aren’t stopped and searched because they are black

They aren’t 6 times more likely to be stopped than others

They haven’t been discriminated against for their skin colour for generations and generations

The police was found to be institutionally racist after the SL inquiry, the rates of stop and search hasn’t changed that much since then.[/quote]
they aren’t being stopped because they are black

Obviously not, if they’re white 🤦‍♀️.

@Goosefoot - So yes - there are reasons there could be statistical variance besides racist police officers. Those were just four that I've seen off the top of my head.

All of the factors you quote might reasonably be expected to modify the rate of criminality in the black population compared to white, yes. However, there's the other half of the argument: how much higher does the rate have to be to justify a six-times higher rate of stop and searches? And if it's so high, why is the success rate of stop and searches of black people barely different from that of white people?

If stop and searches were done purely at random (literally using a die roll or something to decide who to stop) then you'd get a much higher rate of arrests from stop and search of black people if the underlying criminality rate of black people was much higher. Stop and search isn't random, though - police target people they think are worth stopping and searching. But if they were equally good at picking white and black criminals out of the background you'd still expect a higher arrest rate of black people since (we assume) there are so many more black criminals. But we don't see that - the arrest rate is pretty much the same. So we're forced to conclude that the police are worse at picking black criminals out of the black population than they are with white people if we want to believe that criminality is higher in blacks than whites. That might not be racism in the sense that they consciously set out to harass black people, but it's most certainly racial discrimination in the sense that they have a very different effect on black people from white.

My point is that there are two stats here - the different stop and search rate and the similar arrest rates from those stop and searches. Either one might be justifiable, but if you claim there's no racial discrimination then both together tell opposite stories.

I'll also make an explicit point that I didn't make earlier: it's perfectly possible to have no ill intent and still be discriminatory. That was the reason I made the point about the 100:1 ratio of stop and searches if you stop black and white people at the same rate, and how it's easily possible to stop way more white people than black and still be stopping far more black people per capita than white. That's also why I used "racial discrimination" rather than "racism" to describe the issue with an apparent poor ability to pick black criminals out of the population. The only time I used "racist" (which I think does imply intent to discriminate) was to describe the case where a cop believes that the criminality rate is equal among black and white people but still supports a six-times higher stop and search rate. I don't doubt that most cops are decent people doing difficult jobs, but discrimination, even if unintentional, doesn't help.

All of the factors you quote might reasonably be expected to modify the rate of criminality in the black population compared to white, yes. However, there's the other half of the argument: how much higher does the rate have to be to justify a six-times higher rate of stop and searches? And if it's so high, why is the success rate of stop and searches of black people barely different from that of white people?

That's a good question, but my point is, we really don't know because the information isn't adequate to draw conclusions.

For some reason, people don't seem to understand that's a pretty serious problem in terms of making claims about causes or solutions. This IMO is why identifying racism or systemic racism as the cause in these instances is so counterproductive - it's just saying the same thing another way, that there is a racial disparity, for some unknown reason. It's not abstract, the reason will be concrete, a real mechanism (maybe more than one) which is causing the disparity. And the response people give is - so stop racism. Which is actually not all that helpful because it has little or nothing to do with the actual concrete mechanisms.

It can actually be rather difficult to collect data at that level, which I suspect is why we don't see it happening much. But where it has been tried the picture that emerges is typically complicated and multi-factorial.