this is an interesting read

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particularly this bit

Then came 9/11. One of the many after-effects of those attacks (although Britain at that stage had never been under threat) was a massive increase in stop-and-search against young men, primarily black and Asian (though affecting whites as well). Within months, the friendly new face of the police had morphed back into something resembling that of the 1980s. I noticed an increase in sirens - and since there was no terrorist threat until after the Iraq invasion, I wondered what all those police were doing with their new-found anti-terrorist powers. The answer: they were stopping and searching hundreds of thousands of young men. In all this time, not a single terrorist suspect has been caught using stop and search. But the result has been an increased hatred for the police among young Londoners. Stop and search is often accompanied with verbal abuse and heavy-handed treatment. The old, violent SPG was dissolved in the 80s, but its successor, the Territorial Support Group (TSG) was becoming known for the same tactics.

Incident after incident has come and gone in the past decade; hundreds of people have died at the hands of the police, and countless thousands have been verbally, racially and physically abused. A young relative of mine was assaulted twice by the police: once slapped across the face, the second time thrown against the side of a van. In neither case was he accused, formally cautioned or arrested for anything. To middle-class Britain, these are just unlinked, isolated events. To people in the inner city, the reported incidents are the tip of the iceberg. Over 300,000 black and Asian people were stopped and searched in the UK during the 2008/09 reporting year. At what point does normal policing activity tip over into the directed acts of a police state? I'd guess it lies at somewhere much less than 300,000 stop-and-searches in a single year.

Posted By: Worzel Scrimmage, Aug 10, 20:11:17