BLACK POLICEMAN CLAIMS MORE STOP-AND-SEARCH NEEDED
(22 October 2007)

One of Britain's leading black police officers, Keith Jarrett, is to demand that more people from ethnic minorities must be stopped and searched if the fight against inner-city gun and knife crime is to succeed. Mr Jarrett, the outgoing president of the National Black Police Association, ahead of his speech to the group’s annual conference in Bristol this week, told the Observer newspaper: “From the return that I am getting from a lot of black people, they want to stop these killings, these knife crimes, and if it means their sons and daughters are going to be inconvenienced by being stopped by the police, so be it."

" I’m hoping we go down that road. I am going to be pressing him [Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police] to increase stop-and-search. It’s not going to go down very well with my audience, many of whom are going to be black. We have talked about disproportionate use of stop-and-search in the past, but what I am proposing is quite the reverse. The black community is telling me that we have to have a look at this.”

The Liberal Democrats have criticised the suggestion that police should increase stop-and-searches, which disproportionately affect the black community, of youngsters to help tackle knife and gun crime.

Responding to the president of the National Black Police Association’s call, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Clegg MP said: “Excessive stop-and-search tactics will only increase community tensions and distrust in the police. Effective policing depends on good intelligence and smart ways of fostering community co-operation. This suggestion points us in exactly the opposite direction and risks repeating all the worst mistakes of the past.”

Mr Jarrett's comments are from an article by Mark Townsend for 'The Observer' newspaper (Sunday October 21, 2007) entitled 'Police: stop more black suspects'.