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Black in Britain: Police officers who target suspects on basis of skin color should be charged
Police stop and search young men in Britain. PHOTO/Jason Alden/Rex Features
Police officers who targeted suspects on grounds of their skin color alone should be charged.
Officers who abuse their powers of stop-and-search to further a racist agenda should be prosecuted for wasting police time, according to a member of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry panel.
Dr Richard Stone, a leading adviser to the judge who produced the landmark Macpherson report in 1999, which concluded that the Metropolitan police was institutionally racist, said officers who targeted suspects on grounds of their skin color alone should be charged with misusing public resources.
Speaking after last week’s sentencing of two of the killers of the black teenager, Stone said such a move would improve public confidence in stop and search, a police power that is under increasing scrutiny over claims of “racial profiling”. He added: “It is a crime to waste police time in this country. A racist officer is an incompetent officer, and if they’re wasting police time they should be charged.”
