Ethnic minorities consulted on police race reforms

Feb 25 2009 by Jonathan Walker, Birmingham Mail

THE minister responsible for race relations has said he is “concerned” police are still targeting black and Asian people for stop and searches.

Sadiq Khan made the admission as he announced plans to consult ethnic minority communities in Birmingham about reforms to equality laws.

The minister is to visit the city as part of an inquiry into the state of race relations, ten years after the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, which claimed police were “institutionally racist”.

Latest Government figures show black people in the West Midlands are five times as likely to be stopped and searched as whites, while Asians are twice as likely.

Police stopped and searched 94,067 white people in 2006-7. This means they stopped eight white people for every 1,000 in the region’s population.

They also stopped and searched 21,806 black people, which represents 46 for every 1,000 living in the region, and 22,857 Asians, 19 for every 1,000 people.

The Lawrence Inquiry in 2009 followed the death of London teenager Stephen Lawrence six years earlier. It criticised the Metropolitan Police in particular, but the findings led to reforms to stamp out racism in forces across the country.

Mr Khan is leading an inquiry by the Department for Communities and Local Government timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the report.

He will consider ways of improving school results for children from ethnic minorities and cutting unemployment, as well as policing. He said he was still concerned that some ethnic groups were apparently being targeted.

He said: “Of course the figures are not pleasing to anybody.

“It would be different if the stops and searches were leading necessarily to arrests and conviction, but that’s not happening all the time.”