Abstract
‘The police have to thank the West Indians for doing us a favour in making us think again about our authority (The Guardian, 1973).’
This was Sir Kenneth Newman’s view, expressed over 20 years ago, when he was head of the Metropolitan Police Community Relations Branch. Since then, not least during his incumbency of the commissionership of his force, the authority of the police has been tested to the limit by black youths demonstrating on the streets. During the 1980s place names like St Pauls, Brixton, Toxteth, Moss Side, Handsworth and Broadwater Farm Estate have become symbols harmonising a litany of discontent, prompting Newman in 1987, the year of his retirement as commissioner of the Met, to speak of police ‘no-go’ areas in inner London.
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© 1996 Simon Holdaway
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Holdaway, S. (1996). British police responses to riots. In: The Racialisation of British Policing. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24481-2_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24481-2_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-56395-3
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