Abstract
The riots in 1980 and 1981 provoked a variety of explanations. It was claimed that ‘hey were the result of criminality, lack of parental guidance or indeed ‘seditious, sociological claptrap that is passed on in our schools as education’.2 Others identified social and economic deprivation as the prime cause, particularly escalating youth unemployment, abysmally inadequate housing, unacceptably low levels of social service provision and decay in central areas.3 A number of politicians, police officers and news media put forward the conspiracy theory; for example the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir David McNee, told journalists
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Notes
Mr Ian Lloyd, Conservative MP for Havant and Waterloo: House of Commons Official Report, Parliamentary Debates (Hansartf), Session 1980–81, Sixth Series, vol.8, col.575 (9 July 1981).
Mr Roy Hattersley, Labour MP for Birmingham Small Heath and Shadow Home Secretary: House of Commons Official Report, Parliamentary Debates (Hansartf), Session 1980–81, Sixth Series, vol.8, col.22 (6 July 1981).
Quoted in J. Clare, ‘Eyewitness in Brixton’, in John Benyon (ed.), Scarman and After: Essays reflecting on Lord Scarman’s Report, the riots and their aftermath (Pergamon Press, 1984) p.50.
G. Murdock, ‘Reporting the riots: images and impact’, in John Benyon (ed.), Scarman and After, op. cit., pp.83-5. Of course British history reveals many instances of riots, see for example G. Rude, The Crowd in History, New York: Wiley, 1967; E. J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, Manchester: University Press, 1959; John Stevenson, Popular Disturbances in England, 1700–1870, London: Longman, 1979.
Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration, Session 1976–77, The West Indian Community, vol. 1, Report, vols 2 and 3, Evidence HC 180, (HMSO, Feb. 1977). vol.2, ‘Memorandum by the Community Relations Commission’ (14 Oct. 1976) p.532, para. B13.
Home Office, Stotistical Bulletin, Issue 20/82, 13 Oct. 1982 (Home Office, 1982) pp.1-9.
See for example Derek Humphry, Police Power and Black People (Panther, 1972); Maureen Cain, Society and the Policeman’s Role (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973); J. R. Lambert, Crime, Police and Race Relations (Oxford University Press, 1970); Police Against Black People (Institute of Race Relations, 1979); Stuart Hall et a/., Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order (Macmillan, 1978); Paul Gordon, White Law: Racism in the Police, Courts and Prisons (Pluto Press, 1983).
Clare Demuth, ‘Sus’: a Report on the Vagrancy Act (Runnymede Trust, 1978).
Philip Stevens and Carole Willis, Race, Crime and Arrests, Home Office Research Study No. 58 (HMSO, 1979) pp.31-3.
House of Commons, Race Relations and the ‘Sus’ Law: Second Report from the Home Affairs Committee, Session 1979–80, HC 559 (HMSO, 1980).
Anne Brogden,’ “Sus” is dead but what about “Sas”?’, New Community, vol.9, no.1 (Summer 1981); Merseyside Police Authority, The Merseyside Disturbances: the Role and Responsibility of the Police Authority (Merseyside County Council, 1981); Peter Southgate, ‘The Disturbances of July 1981 in Handsworth, Birmingham’ in Simon Field and Peter Southgate (eds), Public Disorder, op. cit., pp.50-1; Mary Tuck and Peter Southgate, Ethnic Minorities, Crime and Policing, Home Office Research Study No.70 (HMSO, 1981).
Carole Willis, The Use, Effectiveness and Impact of Police Stop and Search Powers, Research and Planning Unit Paper 15 (Home Office, 1983).
Stevens and Willis, Race, Crime and Arrests, op. cit., pp.l5-18. For a critical discussion of the Stevens and Willis study see John Lea and Jock Young, What Is To Be Done about Law and Order? (Penguin, 1984) pp.147-62.
Police and People in London, vol.3: David J. Smith, A Survey of Police Officers, PSI No.620 (Policy Studies Institute, 1983) pp.88-91.
Lee Bridges and Paul Gilroy, ‘Striking Back’, Marxism Today (1982); see also Lee Bridges, ‘Policing the Urban Wasteland’, Race and Class, vol.25 (Autumn 1983); Lee Bridges, ‘Extended Views: the British Left and Law and Order’, Sage Race Relations Abstract (Feb. 1983); Paul Gilroy, ‘The Myth of Black Criminality’, Socialist Register 1982 (Merlin, 1982).
Stuart Hall, Chas Critcher, Tony Jefferson, John Clarke, Brian Roberts, PoUcing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order (Macmillan, 1978) p.338.
Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (Granada, 1973) p.9.
Derek Humphry, ‘Danger Signals from the Streets of Lambeth’, Sunday Times, 5 Jan. 1975.
Maureen Cain, Society and the Policeman’s Role (Routledge & Kegan ·Paul, 1973) p.l17.
Joseph A. Hunte, Nigger-Hunting in England? (West Indian Standing Conference, 1966).
H. Mannheim, Comparative Criminology, vol.l (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965) p.l14.
Louis Blom-Cooper and Richard Drabble, ‘Police Perception of Crime: Brixton and the Operational Response’, British Journal of Criminology, vol.22 (Apr. 1982) pp.184-7.
Peter Southgate and Paul Ekblom, Contacts between Police and Public: Findings from the British Crime Survey, Home Office Research Study No.77 (HMSO, 1984) pp.23-4.
Philip Stevens and Carole Willis, Ethnic Minorities and Complaints Against the Police, Research and Planning Unit Paper 5 (Home Office, 1981).
Colin Brown, Block and White Britain: The Third PSI Survey (Heinemann, 1984) table 138, p.276; see also tables 57 and 119, pp.122 and 221.
Robert Reiner, The Blue-Coated Worker (Cambridge University Press, 1978) pp.225-6.
Peter Southgate, Police Probationer Training in Race Relations, Research and Planning Unit Paper No.8 (Home Office, 1982) pp.9-12.
M. Hough and P. Mayhew, The British Crime Survey: First Report, Home Office Research Study no.76 (HMSO, 1983); Southgate and Ekblom, Contacts between Police and Public, op. cit.; David Moxon and Peter Jones, ‘Public Reactions to Police Behaviour: Some Findings from the British Crime Survey’, Policing, vol.l, no.1 (Autumn 1984) pp.49-56.
Robert Reiner, The Politics of the Police (Wheatsheaf, 1985) pp.126-7 and 134.
Salman Rushdie, ‘The New Empire within Britain’, New Society, 9 Dec. 1982.
John Rex, ‘Law and Order in Multi-Racial Inner City Areas- the Issues after Scarman’ in Philip Norton (ed.), Law and Order and British Politics (Gower Press, 1984) p.107.
Simha Landau, ‘Juveniles and the Police’, British Journal of Criminology, vol.21 (Jan. 1981).
P. A. J. Waddington,’ “Community policing”: a Sceptical Appraisal’, in Philip Norton (ed.), Law and Order and British Politics (Gower Press, 1984) p.95.
P. A. J. Waddington,’ “Community policing”: a Sceptical Appraisal’, in Philip Norton (ed.), Law and Order and British Politics (Gower Press, 1984) p.95.
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© 1986 Zig Layton-Henry and Paul B. Rich
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Benyon, J. (1986). Spiral of Decline: Race and Policing. In: Layton-Henry, Z., Rich, P.B. (eds) Race, Government and Politics in Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18395-1_10
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