WASTING POLICE TIME: Protest the Protest when it's Outdated and no Longer Acutely Accurate.
Banksy's picture emphasises racial profiling against Black males in stop and search in the UK. Such official racism existed in the 60's 70's and 80's where European hegemonic perceptions of middle-class White female innocence contrasted with the demonisation of young Black males. Such racist discrimination in policing the streets used to be a very nasty big problem in the UK. And in some parts of the country we have no doubt it re
mains a big problem - that we would not deny. However, Banksy's obvious parody ignores the current new reality of Home Office Hi-Viz and CCTV imposed policing charge and clear-up target-oriented policing that leads to the criminalisation of the previously so called "respectable" classes (see Coppers Blog). Or does it? Perhaps it's not a parody at all?
mains a big problem - that we would not deny. However, Banksy's obvious parody ignores the current new reality of Home Office Hi-Viz and CCTV imposed policing charge and clear-up target-oriented policing that leads to the criminalisation of the previously so called "respectable" classes (see Coppers Blog). Or does it? Perhaps it's not a parody at all? Bent Society's graffiti is added to Banksy's art in order to cut through a possibly deliberately obscure reference to the net-widening criminalisation of British citizens. Banksy's art works at so many levels so long as the subtlety is not lost on people.
Sorry Banksy but a lot of people will never get clever double-bluff parody - if that is indeed what you intended.
11 comments:
What seems to be forgotten is that we are "profiled" all the time. When we apply for car insurance health insurance, a loan or mortgage.
If you apply for a job in the public sector they will have targets to meet on ethnicity, sexuality and various other criteria.
None of this causes a hue and cry, but if you intimate that you are targeting a group of people as they are statistically more likely to commit a crime, then you have overstepped the mark.
Nobody had a problem when the Irish Catholics were all targeted as potential bombers, because it was Irish Catholics who were doing all the bombing.
If you were to suggest that every 10-40 year old Muslim male who has spent a six week "holiday" in Pakistan recently be subject to slightly more scrutiny than the other 99.9% of the population, you are discriminating.
Good points - but also there is tautological fallacy that follows stop and search profiling (self-fulfilling prophecy) - given that many of us offend in different ways if you target and focus attention on just one group rather than another then by default that will effect your crime statistics. This was proven by Ben Bowling's research on stop and search in London - where statistics proved that the majority of charges arose not from finding evidence of crimes on those they stopped but subsequent charges of assault ("he bit my knee" - "he bit my fist" - "he pushed me as I attempted to poke him in the chest" - "he swore and became abusive simply because it was the umpteenth time he'd been stopped that week etc etc") - but from charges bought for public order and assault against those who were being abused by racist and rude and aggressive police officers.
If White/white collar crime, or shop staff-stock shrinkage was given more focus how many people would be found guilty of nicking paper, clothes, food, pens, laptops and lord knows what else?
Then regarding Muslim males - such a minute percentage are remotely likely to be engaged in terrorism that stopping them through profiling is likely to lead to innocent Brazilians being murdered on tube trains. It would also lead to fallacious tautological crime stats that would show they were more likely to be dope smokers or weapon carriers than Whites.
Alan and Robin - good debate.
Alan was refering to those spending 6 weeks in Pakistan...rather than stopping more Asians males carrying rucksacks than Whites or Blacks.
He has a point. I agree with him. Same as it made sense to search White Hippies returning from the East in the 60's for drugs.
Of the 50 or so notable aircraft hijackings in the last 40 years, over 30 of them have been by Islamist groups. The remaining 20 are by such an random group they cannot really be catergorised (disgruntled employee, drunkard, bank robber etc...)
The only Brit who has ever attempted to bring down a comercial airliner is Richard Colvin Reid (also known as Abdul Raheem) a convert to Islam.
As a result of this, I am subjected to exactly the same security checks as someone who known association with a fanatical group and received training in mass murder.
When prostitutes turn up dead in ditches the police generally look for a white male.
When a black guy shoots a black guy its reported as "gun crime".
When a black guy shoots a white guy its reported as "gun crime".
When a black guy shoots an Asian guy its reported as "gun crime".
When a white guy shoots a black guy its reported as "race crime".
This goes right back to the banning issue, banning all legal handguns in the UK did nothing whatsoever to prevent gun crime. All it did was to deprive law abiding citizens of a hobby and cost us few medals in the Olympics.
Being seen to be doing something without offending anyone has become more important than targeting the root cause of the problem.
All I know is...when I go via Stranraer/Larne or Belfast it is Ali,Faizul & Mohammed that are stopped.Brother McEgan is far more radical.Plus whiter.
K.McEgan,
The last time I was in Belfast every single army Land Rover that was driving around with the terrorist hotline number written on the side had "Don't Call, it's just for fun" spray painted underneath.
For the record, Belfast rocked.
Alan G. is agin spot on in his comments. Especialy the way in which crime is classified when the victim is non-white, and the offender is white. The police have whole departments dedicated to trying to prove that crimes are in fact hate crimes. Not because they are, but to justify their jobs and keep themselves behind a desk, and off the 'scary' streets.
It is also no good pretending that some groups of society are not prone to commiting certain forms of crime. When these differences are not criminal, we are told theat they are merely cultural differences. Surely there are going to be crime trends among every social/racial/religious group depending on their social outlook and customs etc. We cannot deny this because it is not politicaly correct.
Going back to the issue of islamist terrorism, it would make sense to stop and search more people from asian and arab groups, because they are more likely to be muslim. A christian or jew is not going to be a islamic terrorist.
I am not saying all muslims are terrorists, but, if we are going to look for islamic terrorists then we need to be looking amongst the muslim population.
As for racist police, i am sure there are some, but they are a minority. But, calling all the police institutionaly racist did not tackle the problem. Anyone who dared to point this fact out was shouted down with an ism/ist which only made people paranoid and insecure. If you constantly got called racist, how long would it be before you believed it, accepted it, or just followed without thinking to prove you aren't?
When I came back form a conference in Rio Brazil a few years ago - as I left the plane (walking up the enclosed ramp from runway to airport building) a man in suit drew me to one side and asked me what the purpose of my trip had been). I can only imagine that as a single White middle aged male travelling alone he wanted to sniff out whether or not I was a paedophile. When I told him I'd presented a paper at the World Criminology Conference he was happy and let me proceed. So looks like I was profiled as a pea do! Nice. What would happen if I regularly travelled alone to places like Brazil, Thailand and Cambodia etc - would I be stopped and searched every time?
You can see how that would become tiring and I might get pissed off with being taken for a criminal pervert. I was offended to tell the truth.
ROBIN
Robin,
You are so right, I know how you feel, we work with a company in Thailand, and whenever I travel there on business I am on a plane with a load of people who are blatantley sex tourists. If you try and distance yourself from them it is a case of "he doth protest too much" and it makes it worse.
I have found that if you just be yourself then the locals can spot who is there for work and who is there to take advantage and you get left alone or just treated as non threatening.
And on the subject of going through airports, try going through any central African one without incurring huge bribes because of the colour of your skin, because they can make the whole experience extremely uncomfortable for you if you don't "dash" - i.e. bribe everyone you have to get past.
AngryDave,
You are right, calling the police "institutionally racist" did more harm than good, and just polarised the issue. It gives the minority more credence than they deserve.
Robin,
You are so right, I know how you feel, we work with a company in Thailand, and whenever I travel there on business I am on a plane with a load of people who are blatantley sex tourists. If you try and distance yourself from them it is a case of "he doth protest too much" and it makes it worse.
I have found that if you just be yourself then the locals can spot who is there for work and who is there to take advantage and you get left alone or just treated as non threatening.
And on the subject of going through airports, try going through any central African one without incurring huge bribes because of the colour of your skin, because they can make the whole experience extremely uncomfortable for you if you don't "dash" - i.e. bribe everyone you have to get past.
AngryDave,
You are right, calling the police "institutionally racist" did more harm than good, and just polarised the issue. It gives the minority more credence than they deserve.
I have visited Europe numerous times but the only time I got stopped was when I was accompanied by someone with an obviously Irish name ( UK passport ).
The cop in your second pic is not a cop he is " Community Protection " or so his label says.
What are they ? We don't have them, how do I get one ?
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