The Alliance for Police Accountability (APA) is a burgeoning project which is developing frameworks for Community Oriented Policing (COP). The project is centered around the British ideal of ‘Policing by Consent’, which, in theory, is driven by public cooperation with the police through public approval and respect. However, we can question if British policing is always driven by public consent.
Over the next couple of years, the APA wants to build trust between Black communities and police by developing new forms of police accountability in four cities and identify community strategies to reduce violence in Black communities.
Models of COP are seen around the world, for example, in Chicago in the US. 1 However, there continue to be examples of racist policing with lethal force in the US and UK making it important to take a comparative approach in both analysing current problems in the criminal justice sector and thinking of possible solutions from across the Atlantic.
The groundswell of protest actions in 2020 across both the USA and UK, including Black Lives Matter protests and other anti-racist protests, led to both governments’ proposing and enacting legislation to restrict protest rights and secure rights of property over civil rights. Protest and political dissent are fundamental rights that we should protect. However, these laws have disproportionately affected Black and Muslim communities.
One example is the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (PCSC) that Royal Assent in 2022. It gives police the power to impose noise-based restrictions on protests as well as impose restrictions on public assemblies. These noise-based restrictions are at the discretion of the frontline officers and can lead to unjust application. It also increases the maximum penalty to 10 years of imprisonment for criminal damage under £5,000 of a memorial.
This comes after the rise in anti-colonial movements such as Rhodes Must Fall, where protestors in the UK and internationally have fought to take down statues of white supremacist Cecil Rhodes. The movement started in South Africa, where student activists at the University of Cape Town successfully removed their statue of Cecil Rhodes on their campus. Oxford students originally campaigned for the removal of their campus’ statue and renewed their campaigning after the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. Oxford’s Oriel College, to this day, has kept up the statue of Rhodes. In Bristol, the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was pushed into the docks by multiracial protestors.
The passing of the PCSC Act, specifically the section on criminal damage of memorials, raises serious concerns that the State opposes anti-racist movements that aim to interrogate the colonial history of the British empire. Through the passing of these new protest restrictions, governments choose to protect private property at the expense of civil liberties.
Similarly, in the US, one of the demands Black Lives Matter activists held was the removal of Confederate monuments. 162 Confederate symbols were removed in 2020 across the country, with some coming down at the hands of protestors and others in collaboration with local governments. This anti-racist fight has been protracted, but in many places across the US, protestors have forced governments to take accountability for the racist symbols in their cities.
In places like Charlottesville, Virginia, activists have campaigned for the removal of Confederate statues for years, and recently, the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was melted down into liquid brass. In 2017, the white supremacist ‘Unite the Right’ rally organised in reaction to protestors’ campaigns, led to the death of anti-racist activist Heather Heyer. Activists were invited to watch the statue get melted down, and Rev. Issac Collins said of his experience:
We were a part of this hundred-year history of resistance to the statue, but also this 400-year legacy of race in the United States. So, it was very gratifying. It was very sobering. It was humbling.
The brass will be used to create public art to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Summer of Hate in 2027.
Although certain symbolic gains have been made, legislation was fundamentally changed in the US post-Black Lives Matter. Several state governments have also passed legislation criminalising protests and increasing police powers.
In Tennessee, HB 8005 increased penalties for peaceful protestors, including protests on sidewalks and in front of the state Capitol, specifically targeting protest encampments in front of the Capitol. Camping would lead to a felony charge, which leads to individuals in Tennessee losing their voting rights. The law also punishes protests that intentionally ‘interfere with’ a meeting of the legislature or other government officials with up to one year in jail. This law was signed as anti-racist protestors had been camping outside the Tennessee Capitol, demanding to meet the governor to discuss racism and police brutality.
The recent pro-Palestinian marches across the UK have been framed as ‘mob rule’ in news media, but these marches have been overwhelmingly peaceful. Netpol’s research into the protests has found that there has been a pattern of racist policing, with Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic protestors alongside Palestinians and Arabic-speaking protestors being targeted. These laws are weaponised to repress political dissent from Black, Asian and Minority ethnic communities.
This political creation of racialised, moralising criminal frameworks is also present in the UK context, specifically in the case of mugging. The mugging crisis of 1972-73 led to the imprisonment of many young Black men. As Stuart Hall argues, the societal reaction to crime preceded the appearance of mugging crimes, which led to disproportionate policing of Black communities. 2 This moral panic obscures the deeper reality of why crime occurs and finds a scapegoat in marginalised communities and ‘inherent’ Black criminality. Societal deviance is a socially constructed concept that is dependent on historical and racial power dynamics, framed by human law.
In these new protest restrictions, we see a trend of protecting private property and corporations at the expense of civil liberties.
Anti-racist movements across the UK and US need to build stronger solidarity networks, as our governments develop partnerships in the restriction of our rights, we must do so in our fight for liberation and equity. The work of the Alliance for Police Accountability should ensure international movements are represented in building a strategy of police reform.
Author: Sira Thiam, APA Development Officer
- Community Policing Can it work W. G. Skogan and J.A. Roth, 2004 ↩︎
- Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order, Stuart Hall, 1978 ↩︎
