Coretta Phillips

Disproportionate and Discriminatory: Reviewing the Evidence on Police Stop and Search

Eight years after the Lawrence Inquiry, the question of police powers to stop and search people in public places remains at the forefront of debate about police community relations. Police are empowered to stop and search citizens under a wide range of legislative acts and the power is employed daily across Britain. Far from laying the debate to rest, the Lawrence Inquiry prompted new research studies and fresh theories to explain the official statistics. We argue that the statistics show that the use of the powers against black people is disproportionate and that this is an indication of unlawful racial discrimination. If stop and search powers cannot be effectively regulated - and it seems that they cannot - then their continued use is unjustified and should be curtailed.

Institutional racism and ethnic inequalities: an expanded multilevel framework

The concept of institutional racism re-emerged in political discourse in the late 1990s after a long hiatus. Despite it initially seeming pivotal to New Labours reform of policing and the antecedent of a new race equality agenda, it has remained a contested concept that has been critiqued by multiple constituencies. This paper notes the ambiguities and contradictions of the concept and considers its validity as an explanatory concept for long-observed ethnic inequalities in educational attainment and stop and search. In so doing, it argues for its retention, but only within a multilevel framework that incorporates racialisations operating at the micro, meso and macro levels.

Digesting men?: ethnicity, gender and food: perspectives from a 'prison ethnography'

Drawing from an ethnographic study of men’s social relations in an English prison, this article explores the potential of attending closely to men’s practice for the light it may shed on the boundaries of punishment. Interviews with prisoners and fieldwork experiences reveal something of the way prison acts on an ethnically diverse group of men. Focusing on the way men use cooking facilities on the prison’s wings, the article explores the way men make food for themselves and each other and thereby occupy prison space with unconventional (and conventional) gender practice. Using intersectional perspectives the article shows how practices of racialization, racism, conviviality and coercion are woven into the fabric of prison life. These quotidian experiences are juxtaposed against the question of how prisons and prisoner populations represent a spectrum of violence in which gender dynamics remain under-examined. By providing glimpses of men’s lives in an English prison to reveal aspects of the ways masculinities and ethnicities interact to shape a penal regime the authors offer some resources for, and perspective on, the theorization of punishment’s boundaries.

Policing and Human Rights

Racial discrimination, xenophobia, intolerance and the abuse power are problems in police forces in many parts of the world.1 In recent years, allegations of racism and racial discrimination have led to public inquiries into many police agencies, including the Metropolitan Police (Bowling, 1999; Macpherson, 1999; Bowling and Phillips, 2002) in London, the New South Wales Police (Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, 1991; Johnston, 1991; Chan, 1997; Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service, 1997) in Australia, the Los Angeles Police Department (Christopher 1991; Human Rights Watch 1998) in the USA, and the South Africa Police Service (Brogden and Shearing, 1993; Cawthra, 1993, 1997; Brewer, 1994; Truth and Reconciliation Committee, 1998; Melville, 1999). In each of these places, evidence has been gathered relating to individual cases and the broader organizational context. Although these are among the best documented examples, the problems of racism, discrimination and the abuse of power have also been identified in many police agencies elsewhere.

‘It ain’t nothing like America with the Bloods and the Crips’: Gang narratives inside two English prisons:

This article explores recent concerns about the emergence of gangs in prisons in England and Wales. Using narrative interviews with male prisoners as part of an ethnographic study of ethnicity and social relations, the social meaning of ‘the gang’ inside prison is interrogated. A formally organized gang presence was categorically denied by prisoners. However, the term ‘gang’ was sometimes elided with loose collectives of prisoners who find mutual support in prison based on a neighbourhood territorial identification. Gangs were also discussed as racialized groups, most often symbolized in the motif of the ‘Muslim gang’. This racializing discourse hinted at an envy of prisoner solidarity and cohesion which upsets the idea of a universal prisoner identity. The broader conceptual, empirical and political implications of these findings are considered.

Facing inwards and outwards? Institutional racism, race equality and the role of Black and Asian professional associations:

This article considers the role and influence of black and Asian professional associations in the criminal justice services, five years on from the pivotal Lawrence Inquiry (1999) and its assertion that ‘institutional racism’ was endemic in the British police service. Drawing on interviews with Chairpersons of seven professional associations, and a small case study of the Association of Black Probation Officers, the article explores their internal supportive function in assisting members who have experienced various forms of occupational racism. A tentative proposal is made for black and Asian professional associations to develop their external focus to utilize members’ life skills and cultural knowledge to challenge the institutional dynamics of racism within the criminal justice services, and to engage more directly with local black and Asian communities. Such work can be conceptually framed by conceiving of ethnicity as a resource.

Muslim is the new black: new ethnicities and new essentialisms in the prison

Drawing from a recent qualitative study of identity, ethnicity, and social relations in two English prisons, the authors reflect on Stuart Hall’s formulation of a new ethnicities paradigm. Using a vignette case study and the comments of a range of prisoners, they consider how persistent patterns of racism are reproduced and challenged in the prison and beyond. British and penal historical and cultural contexts are provided to facilitate an empirically informed discussion of plural and evolving racisms, new ethnicities, and Islamophobia. An argument is presented that suggests a thinly theorized understanding of ethnicity is assuming the status of a falsely benign orthodoxy, one that shrouds the familiar and painful injuries of racism.

The re-emergence of the 'black spectre': minority professional associations in the post-Macpherson era

Abstract This article reflects on the forging of a collective black identity among professionals working within the criminal justice field in the aftermath of the Macpherson Report (1999). Drawing on interviews with the Chairpersons of ‘black’ and ‘Asian’ professional associations, it describes the familiar tensions associated with mobilizing against racism and discrimination in the workplace. These include the viability of an inclusive black political position and the challenge of ‘fighting from within’ or being a ‘critical friend’ of criminal justice services. The political backdrop is one in which the policy goal of eliminating ‘institutional racism’ has given way to a discourse of ‘promoting race equality and embracing diversity’. Despite the obstacles, these professional associations provide a safe and supportive network for members which is grounded in a powerful, shared history of occupational racism.

Observational studies in police custody areas: Some methodological and ethical issues considered

Since the 1960s, social researchers have conducted a number of studies of police behavior and operational practice, and some of these have included an observational component. This paper reviews some of the methodological and ethical difficulties involved in conducting observational research in police stations. It then considers the advantages of using this type of research technique, and ends with suggestions for conducting this type of research which take account of these methodological and ethical issues.

‘Con-viviality’ and Beyond: Identity Dynamics in a Young Men’s Prison

This chapter explores the configuration of identity, social relations and ethnicity within the confines of a young men’s prison. The site of intense deprivations, referred to by Sykes (1958) as the ‘pains of imprisonment’, prisons gather together many of those people also bearing the pains of structural disenfranchisement and marginalisation which characterise deprived neighbourhoods (Wacquant, 2007).