The New Statesman and The Guardian this week have been reporting on a new report about inequality in Britain, which shows that black people make up less than 3% of the population but 15% of the people stopped by police. People of Afro-Caribbean and African descent are also imprisoned nearly 7 times more than their share of the population, compared with 4 times more in the US.
This indicates that there’s still a long way to go to improve problems of racism in the UK’s criminal justice system. This is an issue that I hope will be taken seriously in the government’s reform of policing. In the current consultation paper ‘Policing in the 21st Century: Reconnecting police and the people’, a prominent theme is to cut back on bureaucracy. The paper specifically refers to ending form-filling, including ‘stop’ forms.
I agree that in general we want the police to spend more time on the streets and less time on filling out paperwork. The principle that there should be more local accountability and less central bureaucratic control is certainly right. But the way that this is implemented needs to be VERY carefully thought through in order to ensure that controls remain to prevent racism and any potential inhibition of civil liberties.
The consultation paper highlights the need to allow the police to use their professionalism to do their job well. I agree with this, but we also need to recognise that the police have a great deal of power and this needs to be used wisely. We still need to have measures in place to ensure that policing powers are used in inappropriate ways, racism is tackled, and civil liberties are protected.
(If you’re interested, the Equality and Human Rights commission report ‘How Fair is Britain’ is available here, and the policing consultation document here).
Showing posts with label civil liberties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civil liberties. Show all posts
Saturday, 16 October 2010
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Counter-terrorism changes- progress at last?
The news today that the government is going to have an enquiry into the torture and rendition of terror suspects is to be welcomed. We have yet to see whether the government will be able to follow through on some of these civil liberties issues that I for one have high hopes about, but this has to be a good start at least (even if I would prefer it to be held in public).
The recent complaints that people leaving prison after serving sentences for terrorism offences (not all of which are related to actually carrying out or planning terrorism) are facing probation conditions that are tantamount to house arrest or control orders is more concerning (reported by the Guardian ). The worry is that situations such as this not only damage the principle of civil liberties, but also prove to be counter-productive.
My view is that it is important to treat terrorism consistently. We either treat it as a political problem- and therefore recognise that there is at least a degree of legitimacy to the political claims of the terrorist organisation, fight the terrorists politically by undermining their claims, and perhaps can therefore argue for different treatment of those accused (political prisoners, in a similar way to prisoners of war). Or, we treat terrorists as ordinary criminals, reject their political claims and any legitimacy of their means, and prosecute their illegal acts in the same way as any other criminal.
Whichever option we choose, I am not convinced that treating people so harshly after release from prison is productive. Civil liberties need to be upheld in any case. But if we’re treating terrorism as a political problem then harsh responses risk increasing the motivation of others, and reinforcing political resolve. The terrorist that has been caught and punished is part of a wider community after all (often political prisoners are treated more leniently, as challengers to the power of the state rather than the community within the state).
If we’re treating terrorists as criminals, then anything that treats them differently to ordinary criminals makes a mockery of that policy, reignites any political motivation, and has the potential to damage the state’s claim to be reinforcing law and order in a fair and equal way.
Ultimately a large part of the problem is that the word terrorism often really means ‘anything we don’t like’. Trying to treat terrorists differently because it is a special sort of crime ends up becoming problematical because terrorism is not objectively defined, increasing tensions between different groups of people with different political ideas.
The recent complaints that people leaving prison after serving sentences for terrorism offences (not all of which are related to actually carrying out or planning terrorism) are facing probation conditions that are tantamount to house arrest or control orders is more concerning (reported by the Guardian ). The worry is that situations such as this not only damage the principle of civil liberties, but also prove to be counter-productive.
My view is that it is important to treat terrorism consistently. We either treat it as a political problem- and therefore recognise that there is at least a degree of legitimacy to the political claims of the terrorist organisation, fight the terrorists politically by undermining their claims, and perhaps can therefore argue for different treatment of those accused (political prisoners, in a similar way to prisoners of war). Or, we treat terrorists as ordinary criminals, reject their political claims and any legitimacy of their means, and prosecute their illegal acts in the same way as any other criminal.
Whichever option we choose, I am not convinced that treating people so harshly after release from prison is productive. Civil liberties need to be upheld in any case. But if we’re treating terrorism as a political problem then harsh responses risk increasing the motivation of others, and reinforcing political resolve. The terrorist that has been caught and punished is part of a wider community after all (often political prisoners are treated more leniently, as challengers to the power of the state rather than the community within the state).
If we’re treating terrorists as criminals, then anything that treats them differently to ordinary criminals makes a mockery of that policy, reignites any political motivation, and has the potential to damage the state’s claim to be reinforcing law and order in a fair and equal way.
Ultimately a large part of the problem is that the word terrorism often really means ‘anything we don’t like’. Trying to treat terrorists differently because it is a special sort of crime ends up becoming problematical because terrorism is not objectively defined, increasing tensions between different groups of people with different political ideas.
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