NCJ Number
206010
Date Published
2004
Length
16 pages
Annotation
After reviewing the history of Asian-police relations in Great Britain, beginning with the policing of Asian workers involved in strikes against workplace racial discrimination from the late 1950's to the late 1970's, this chapter focuses on the current period of Asian-police relations (from the early 1990's to the present), which has involved the policing of public order situations in which the police have been pitted against groups of "rioting" Asian males.
Abstract
The disorders of June 1995, which involved large numbers of Asian young men in the Manningham area of Bradford, were triggered when two police officers intervened against a "noisy group" of young Asian men playing football in the street. The police entered a house and allegedly knocked down an Asian woman in a struggle; three young men were arrested. A subsequent analysis of the dynamics of this incident, coupled with a broader study of Asian-police relations, found that there was a general perception by Asian residents that the police lacked the proper respect for Asian women and Asian communities in general. Asian young men claimed that the police had for years tolerated and neglected high levels of prostitution, street drunkenness, rowdiness, and abusive and intimidating behavior by Whites coming into the area from outside. This has been perceived as an affront to the mostly British Muslim Pakistani and Bangladeshi populations living there. The recurring theme in the policing of inner city Asian communities is that they are under-policed rather than over-policed, in that Asians perceive the police as unwilling or unable to enforce the laws against prostitution, drug dealing, antisocial behavior, and low-level persistent offending in Asian neighborhoods. The police are most visible when relatively large-scale disorders occur, resulting in the punitive criminalization of large numbers of Asian young men involved in the disorders. There is clearly a need for police to address crime, particularly racist violence, in poor minority communities, and to do so in a way that respects the legal rights and cultural values of the residents. Northern British Pakistani and Bangladeshi populations in particular are increasingly spatially concentrated and segregated in socially excluded areas that regularly experience violence, crime, and public disorder. The challenge of policing these communities is to work cooperatively with other government agencies to achieve social integration for these isolated communities, establish public order and address crime without antagonizing the law-abiding residents, and control criminal elements that disrupt these communities from both within and outside. 3 notes