[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Major Variola ret) writes:
> If folks were wondering why the US BoR matters:
>
>
>http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsessionid=JBWCVFXQGK3RACRBAE0CFEYKEEATGIWD?type=worldnews&StoryID=684315
>
> By Kate Kelland
>
> LONDON (Reuters) - The British government told police Monday to "stop
> and search" more suspects on the streets in a crime-busting move that
> critics say is racist.
>
> The government hopes an increase in random searches will cut street
> crime and restore public confidence, even if critics say the powers
> could be used to intimidate ethnic minorities.
>
> Home Secretary (interior minister) David Blunkett said he wanted a
> "stop and search program that has the confidence of the police and the
> confidence in the police by the community."
>
> Worried by a surge in violent street crime and stung by police
> complaints that the legal system makes it hard to convict criminals,
> Blunkett is trying to change the perception that the ruling Labor
> party is soft on crime.
>
> Opponents of his order fear that the police, particularly in London,
> may abuse their power by singling out young blacks.
>
> Home Office data show black people are five times more likely to be
> stopped and searched than white people.
>
> London's Metropolitan Police force has come under close scrutiny since
> being branded "institutionally racist" in a 1999 inquiry into its
> handling of the murder of black London teen-ager Stephen Lawrence,
> stabbed to death by a gang six years earlier.
>
> It has since worked hard to clean up its image, reducing the number
> of "stop and search" actions and insisting that a culture change had
> swept through its ranks.
>
> Last year, police in England and Wales stopped and searched some
> 853,000 people, down 17 percent on 2000.
>
> Blunkett said Monday he wanted to reverse that trend. "Used in a
> targeted, intelligence-led way, stop and search can be particularly
> effective against street robbery, gun crime and drug dealing," he said
> in a statement.
>
> Michael Eboda, editor of the black newspaper New Nation, disagreed,
> saying he considered stop and search to be a "an incredibly
> inefficient way of cracking down on crime."
>
> "The problem is that when you harass innocent individuals -- and we
> have to remember that 82 percent of those who are stopped and searched
> have actually done nothing wrong -- then all you do is alienate those
> people," Eboda told BBC radio.
