No, it’s not just an American problem: institutional racism is alive & well in the UK police system

By Keeley Braithwaite

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Racist incidents frequently committed by police are not confined to America. Anti-racism protests which have erupted in the UK in the face of the death of George Floyd are protesting much more than the obvious acts of police brutality; much of the racism is invisible beyond statistics or reports. However, the fact that they do not make the front pages does not deny their existence. Police in the UK have faced countless allegations of racism, on an institutional level as well as individual incidents, and have been doing so for a long time. Police brutality is evident in the 1,741 people who have been killed by police officers in the UK since 1990. This is a race issue: 8% of these deaths are Black individuals, despite only accounting for 3% of the population.

One of the most well-known examples of this is the case of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old Black man shot in Tottenham in 2011 by a Metropolitan police officer. Duggan was surrounded by officers and unarmed when he was killed, and yet a 2014 inquest ruled that his death was lawful and the officer responsible had acted in self-defence. The result of the shocking event was some of the most severe protests seen in London in terms of damage: 3,000 arrests, buses and buildings set alight, shops looted, and the emergency services unable to control such events. The wrongfulness (including the use of racial profiling and brutal police actions) of these incidents has been acknowledged and yet they have been repeated. For example, the 1998 death of Christopher Alder was deemed to have been caused by ‘most serious neglect’ and ‘unwitting racism’ in an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), and Sean Rigg’s death in 2008, caused by ‘unsuitable force’ as described by an inquest jury in 2012. The coroner in the inquest into Sean’s death offered a Prevention of Future Deaths report, in which he was highly critical of the police and called for critical learning for the involved police services.

"..data reveals that though only 3% of the UK population is Black, they make up 22% of stop and searches.."

Both Black men were treated, by the police, without the dignity or respect afforded to their white counterparts. Yet in neither case were the police brought to justice. In Alder’s case, the Crown Prosecution Service initially claimed there was insufficient evidence to pursue a manslaughter charge, but in June 2002 the five officers responsible for Alder’s death were acquitted when the judge ordered the jury to find a result of not guilty. This appears to be a common result; according to Len Jackson, the interim chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, juries are often unwilling to convict police officers. One police officer in Rigg’s case was unsuccessfully prosecuted on a charge of perjury, with the charity Inquest claiming that IPCC inaction ‘allowed unchallenged false evidence to go before the inquest, and ultimately provided [the officer] with a plausible explanation for his false evidence.’ It is clear from these acts that far too often police fail to meet the expected standard of care when it comes to treating Black people in custody, at any point from arrest to conviction and more.

The number of Black people targeted by stop and search highlights the suspicion and judgement police officers hold; in 2014, then Home Secretary Theresa May stated that this police power was “unfair, especially to young Black men,” and MP David Lammy has stated, “it destroys trust between police and the communities they serve”. Despite such disapproval from various politicians, since 1995, Black people have been consistently 4 to 8 times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people, according to a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It is telling that Black people are judged prematurely by police and the disproportionate rate is unfounded, as data reveals that though only 3% of the UK population is Black, they make up 22% of stop and searches, a worrying increase from 13% in 2014/15.

In the US, various mechanisms exist to protect police officers from prosecution, resulting in very few facing severe consequences for their actions, such as when they assault or even kill citizens unlawfully. The arrest and charging of the four officers involved in the death of George Floyd is merely the tip of the iceberg, and arguably is the result of significant public pressure rather than change to the system. Qualified immunity is the culprit for this unjust protection, a doctrine initially created by Pierson v Ray, which protects police officers from criminal charges to ensure they can perform their role without fear of prosecution (read more at https://www.theeyesjournal.com/post/qualified-immunity-supreme-court-protection-for-the-cops-who-kill), as well as the ‘stand your ground’ law, which justified lethal force in the name of self-defence.

The situation is not much better in the UK- since 1969, there has only been a single conviction for a police officer responsible for the death of somebody in their care, according to a study by the IPCC. British solicitor Nazir Afzal has placed the blame partly on the lack of evidence against police officers aside from that given by their colleagues, who are rarely called to give evidence to support a case of a death in police custody, arguably because many feel the need to ‘protect their own’- the idea known as the ‘Blue Wall of Silence’ in America. This suggests that in reality, the police stick together and will not admit to mistakes or failings, let alone face consequences, contradicting the UK police’s statement following the death of Floyd, that “policing is complex and challenging and sometimes we fall short. When we do, we are not afraid to shine a light on injustices or to be held to account.”