A personal view of stop & search and anti-racism by Gareth Kitchen.
@gruff@stroud.social
The over-representation of people from racial and ethnic minorities in the Criminal Justice System is a serious concern.
The generally accepted minority ethnic diversity statistic for Gloucestershire is approx 5%. Comparing this to the national sentencing data from the Ministry of Justice the over-representation is clear.
I have served on the Gloucestershire Police Stop & Search Scrutiny Panel for over two years where, more recently, I have been proud to represent Stroud Against Racism.
The Constabulary have engaged positively and I believe SAR has built up a good and respectful working relationship. This blog is representative of this engagement.
SAR has to praise the Constabulary for releasing this long awaited report, warts & all.
Although these historic ethnicity figures are similar to those presented by other forces, be under no illusion, they are poor. We believe that the picture is actually worse than shown, due to data integrity issues in the 2018/19 period specific to Gloucestershire.
The long awaited report into stop & search in Gloucestershire has finally been published:-
The purpose of the report is to examine concerns relating to disproportional use of these powers based on protected characteristics, specifically Race.
An establishment paralysed by bluster and incompetence but our local communities, high streets, grassroot organisations and small businesses all stepped up to the plate to protect the vulnerable and support those in need.
Minutes from the Gloucestershire Constabulary Stop Search Community Scrutiny Panel meetings
Gloucestershire's newly elected Police and Crime Commissionaire, Chris Nelson recently tweeted about Festus Akinbusoye, Britain’s first black police and crime commissioner.
