The Stephan Lawrence Case

After the death of Stephen Lawrence, an inquiry was held to investigate how the metropolitan police handled the case. Sir William Macpherson released a report that “institutional racism affects the Metropolitan Police Service, and police services elsewhere. “He made 70 recommendations which he thought would help eliminate institutional racism within the metropolitan police services. In a review of the Macpherson report the Home office stated they applied 67 of the recommendations in part or full.

In the case Lawrence v. Texas (539 U.S. 558, 2003) which was the United States Supreme Court case the criminal prohibition of the homosexual pederasty was invalidated in Texas. The same issue has been already addressed in 1989 in the case Bowers v. Hardwick, however, the constitutional protection of sexual privacy was not found at that time. Lawrence overruled Bowers and held that sexual conduct was the right protected by the due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The effects of the ruling were quite widespread and led to invalidation of the similar laws throughout the United States that tried to criminalize the homosexual activity of adults which were acting in privacy. The case attracted much of the public

Recently, it has been brought up that there is still institutional racism within the Police force, this, as well as many other reasons such as negative stereotyping, informal bias and assumptions from ethnic minority groups themselves are reasons why people from minority groups are less inclined to join. The Police have introduced a number of ways to try and create a more diverse workforce. Some of these methods include, improving the data collected on the age,

Alang research article and views are very helpful to put a halt to the heinous and brutal acts caused by police officers but we believe that the officers should undergo a series of psychological testing to prove they are racist or homophobic or to prove that they don’t have an inch discrimination in their blood. My group proposal will help point out the racist and stop

This essay will introduce two competing perspectives of policing, they are the orthodox and revisionist perspectives. This essay will then relate the orthodox and revisionist perspectives to the themes of lack of structure, industrialisation and finally hostility. It will then discuss whether the creation of the Metropolitan Police by Sir Robert Peel in 1829 was an effective solution to the changes within society as well as the challenges brought about through crime and disorder. The orthodox view is that the Metropolitan Police were, in fact, a rational decision made to adapt to the needs of the society. They argue that the establishment of the ‘new’ police was inevitable. The revisionist view would state that the ‘new’ police were not a rational decision. They believed that crime and disorder were not increasing, it was just that the ways of counting crime were largely different to previously. The revisionists also believe that the new system was in part beneficial for which to tackle issues that may have occasioned due to the new ‘dangerous class’ (Monkkonen, 1981, p147). In this essay, there will be reference made to the Brixton Riots in 1981 with a clear explanation as to how the orthodox and revisionist perspectives relate to modern policing activities.

“The police have a number of powers of stop and search. When using any power they must always have regards to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) codes of practice.” The effectiveness of the police stop and search procedures being used as a valuable tool in the detection of crime can be measured by looking at the role that stop and searches play in policing and the arrests they lead to. However their impact on the community and the negative image it has given the police force outweigh the results generated from stop and searches. It has been found through various reports such as one by The Equality and Human Rights Commission, arrests for serious offenses are less likely to follow from stop and searches however they do play

Ramsey mentions the prejudices present in today’s police officers. After reading this article I have thought about my own prejudices and how it would affect my police work. Ramsey explains that it is human nature for officers to have prejudices, but it is up to the individual officer to not let those prejudices control his/her police work. It would take self-discipline and self-control for officers to not let their prejudices surface and become a problem while working. However, officers are taught self-discipline and self-control at the Police Academy to prevent this problem.

Unfortunately, individuals are dehumanized by police officers by way of discrimination. One example of unfair treatment from law officers is the racial discrimination in England and Wales uncovered by a shocking survey, “Police forces were threatened today with legal action as the Government’s equality watchdog said Black and Asian Britons were still being unfairly

There are numerous concerns based on the quantity and content of stop and searches which are often influenced by institutionalised racism (Home Office, 1997). Studies suggested that the police maintain a belief that black people are prone to be involved in violent crimes (Reiner, 1989). Therefore leading to black individuals routinely falling victim to police stereotypes and overgeneralisations (Bowling and Phillips, 2007). Police interviews have suggested that police perceive certain ethnicities to be involved with certain crimes, one interview suggested that if police are alerted of a robbery, 90% of the time they will assume it is involving a black individual (Quinton et al, 2000). Despite that there is evidence suggesting that racial disadvantages will cause an increase in young blacks to be involved with crime, suggesting that these suspicions are justified (Waddington et al, 2007). Furthermore, there is little research suggesting that police enforce their prejudices when working on the streets, thus suggesting that racial views are a result of police canteen sub-culture (Waddington, 1999).

Police Relations with Minority Ethnic Communities The Macpherson report was published in 1999 amidst problems of racial inequality and a lack of faith in the police amongst minority ethnic communities. There is an ongoing debate on whether Macpherson’s report was a help or a hindrance with regards to minority ethnic relations and the police; it is this dispute that the essay shall examine. To begin with the paper will look at the problems, which existed prior to Sir William Macpherson’s publication and which led to the publication of his report. It will then proceed to examine the failures of the Scarman report, in order to look at both the prior problems and failures regarding the 1981 Scarman

Apart from periodically publishing stop and search records, supervisors and managers of police force are now required to closely monitor such statistics and take timely actions if something wrong is being observed. Also stricter rules on stop and search have since been imposed, along with the requirement of police officers writing a detailed report on spot about every single incident which subjects to review seems helpful in improving police conduct (Fyfe 1979; Skogan and Frydl 2004 in Miller 2010). While stop and search practice has been somehow improved, racial discrimination can still be seen in stop and search statistics. The notion of “Black and minority ethnic groups, particularly black people, have for many years been disproportionately at the receiving end of police stop and search—a fact associated with profound community resentment towards the police” (Bowling and Phillips 2002 in Miller 2010) still largely applies today. Miller’s (2010) analysis indicate that black people are about 6 times more likely to be stopped and searched, while it is about 2 times more likely for Asians. Similar idea is seen in Bennetto’s (2009) report, which draws on police statistics that shows in 2009 “black people are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white”, worse than Miller’s analysis with the most recent figures in 2008. No official explaination is provided by Police, but Bennetto (2009) assumes this may be caused by simply discrimination of

In the modern policing, policing perform their duties with the cooperation of the public and by law. Policing is the use of police power to protect the public from threats and crimes without being based on the race and color (Bowling and Phillips 2007). There are some instances where police use an excess of force towards blacks and ethnic people during search and stop which is referred as the racial policing. Racial policing is the issue of racism when police officer treats a one person different from other based on their color, race, and origin. Blacks and racial minorities are the most vulnerable groups who suffer from racial

There are three reasons for the disproportionate use of stop and search against members of minority ethnic groups. Firstly Police Racism; the Macpherson Report (1999), on the investigation of the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence, concluded that there was institutional racism within the Met.Police. Other people have also found there to be excessive racist attitudes among officers. Also Phillips and Bowling suggested that officers hold negative stereotypes about ethnic minorities. Such stereotypes are endorsed and upheld by the canteen culture.

The Criminal Justice System, a system the British government set up to deal with the treatment of law-breakers, has three main goals to achieve social order, these are, (1) enforcing criminal law, (2) maintaining law and order in the society, and (3) helping victims. This may seem to be a well thought of system, but like any other organisation, there are flaws, and one of the major flaws is discrimination, and the bias that stems from discrimination.

The aim of this essay is to carry out a research on why black people are more likely to be stop and search than a white or Asian. The assignment will be using literature explore the logic behind stop and search in the country and analyze the power police have when they are undertaking stop and search. This essay will be utilising the epistemology approach to find out the true about stop and search and determine limitation of knowledge. The essay going to be looking at ethical issues that would need to take into consider when carrying out a research on stop and search the reason why you need to have ethical consideration as researcher. This paper will be inspecting practical issue that are involve when performing a stop and search research project. The paper will be using quantitative method to measure how many people are affected by stop and search and who disagree with the power of the police. The quantitative method will give an overall statistic on how many people experience stops and search in