18 years on, lessons for police remain unchanged
The shadow of bungled police investigation and institutional racism hangs over yesterday's partial justice for Stephen Lawrence's family. We have heard about how much has changed in the Met after the MacPherson inquiry. I hope it has, having witnessed for myself the brush-off given to a casual inquiry about levels of local racism at an East End police station in 1991.
But look at the failure of a senior police officer to meet the family of Mark Duggan that sparked off this summer's riots, in which hatred of police seems to have been the one common factor. Or the repeal of post-MacPherson legislation relating to stop and account, continuing excess use of stop and search against ethnic minorities, or insensitive deployments of CCTV in muslim neighbourhoods.
So a reminder of the importance of policing by consent. This principle should underpin all our policing, of both protests and communities. Our politicians are too quick to forget the lesson when legislating and looking for the 'quick fix' in response to riots or crises.
Community policing takes years to build up, but just a few bad policing decisions to destroy. The test post-Lawrence is, will we stick by policing by consent when the going gets tough.
| permanent link to this post | category: /policing |
Comment form for spammers only
Spammers can use this form to identify themselves, everybody else must use the form below!
Comments on this entry (0 comments)