British Sprinter And Her Black Boyfriend Stopped By The Police .....

[Llandaff Blue]

Feel free to click the links provided.

I'm not disputing the statistics, I'm telling you without providing crime rates it's pointless using them. Black people commit disproportionate knife crime, therefore black people will be searched for knives at a higher rate. I don't think stop and search is effective on its own, but it's not racist.

[jon1959]

I'm not disputing the statistics, I'm telling you without providing crime rates it's pointless using them. Black people commit disproportionate knife crime, therefore black people will be searched for knives at a higher rate. I don't think stop and search is effective on its own, but it's not racist.

An interesting viewpoint - and one that defies all the data.

Do you think racial profiling is racist?

I assume you don't as you have already got to the argument that 'black people' commit x times more crime (knife crime is just an example) therefore should be x times more targeted by the police. In my innocence I thought criminals committed x times more crime so the police should use objective intelligence (not stereotypes and plain prejudice) to target criminals!

[Llandaff Blue]

An interesting viewpoint - and one that defies all the data.

Do you think racial profiling is racist?

I assume you don't as you have already got to the argument that 'black people' commit x times more crime (knife crime is just an example) therefore should be x times more targeted by the police. In my innocence I thought criminals committed x times more crime so the police should use objective intelligence (not stereotypes and plain prejudice) to target criminals!

Not 'should', but 'are', big difference. I had an issue with the original post quoting statistics without context.

[Feedback]

An interesting viewpoint - and one that defies all the data.

Do you think racial profiling is racist?

I assume you don't as you have already got to the argument that 'black people' commit x times more crime (knife crime is just an example) therefore should be x times more targeted by the police. In my innocence I thought criminals committed x times more crime so the police should use objective intelligence (not stereotypes and plain prejudice) to target criminals!

come on Jon you're clever enough. knife crime is not homogeneous in London it is restricted to certain areas, areas that have higher than average BAME residents. Thats not suggesting that BAME are more likely to commit knife crime, but areas of social deprivation are more likely to have higher incidents. If you specifically target those areas, then you are going to have higher than normal instances on people from those areas being stopped and searched. That's not racist. However, as these areas have higher than average BAME residents, then it would appear than the BAME community is being searched out of proportion.

Let me put it another way - during the Northern Ireland troubles, were the RUC and MI6 looking for terrorists in Northern Ireland, Wales, France or Kenya? Where do you think the security services would have more success in focusing their attention - it is the same here. If there is knife crime, then focus on those areas where the crime is happening.

[jon1959]

come on Jon you're clever enough. knife crime is not homogeneous in London it is restricted to certain areas, areas that have higher than average BAME residents. Thats not suggesting that BAME are more likely to commit knife crime, but areas of social deprivation are more likely to have higher incidents. If you specifically target those areas, then you are going to have higher than normal instances on people from those areas being stopped and searched. That's not racist. However, as these areas have higher than average BAME residents, then it would appear than the BAME community is being searched out of proportion.

Let me put it another way - during the Northern Ireland troubles, were the RUC and MI6 looking for terrorists in Northern Ireland, Wales, France or Kenya? Where do you think the security services would have more success in focusing their attention - it is the same here. If there is knife crime, then focus on those areas where the crime is happening.

I agree with some of that but it dodges the charge of racial profiling. If the police are targeting people just because of their skin colour or nationality - that is racist. It is simple. If they are targeting people because of location, time of day, gang membership, behaviour consistent with probable criminal activity, and a number of other relevant factors, that is probably a reasonable and evidence-based way of targeting resources. As I understand the data and anecdotes, what is presented as one thing regularly slips into the other - with crude racial profiling underpinning the stop and search statistics (and in fact most of the statistics that show discriminatory treatment of BAME people throughout the police and criminal justice system - from police stop to conviction and sentence length).