Those Bigotted Cameras!

Something I find extremely annoying is the absurd notion that policemen should ignore things like race and ethnicity when on patrol. And, of course, this notion is usually held by the very people who make such a big deal out of the fact that many of the groups known by police to produce the most criminals have cultures that differ from that of the larger society in which they live. So they call our cops racists while failing to examine these cultures critically, thus committing two injustices for the price of one.

Via Matt Drudge, I learned of a very amusing story concerning "racial profiling" in the United Kingdom -- on the part of inanimate objects!

[Sir Ian] Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has signed off a report by his force's traffic unit which shows that black people account for 46% of all arrests generated by new automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR) cameras.

...

However, statistics from the 2001 census show that the highest black population in any borough is no greater than about 25%. The proportion of black people across the capital as a whole is about 11%.

And the police department did not help itself by attempting to spin the numbers with the dishonest moral premise of its detractors.

The report tacitly appears to address concerns among ethnic minority communities who believe they are unfairly targeted by the police through stop and search powers. Black people are up to six times more likely to be stopped than whites.

The report says: "It is worth stating that out of all our activities, this is the one area where the officer has minimal discretion as they respond to an electronic matching process."

Last week the Met attempted to explain the high number of arrests among blacks by the fact that they make up a higher proportion of the population in areas such as Southwark and Lewisham in south London, where the ANPR units operate. [bold added]

Needless , yet still amazing to say, some are already trying to evade the obvious conclusion: That blacks are more likely to commit infractions that get them arrested in this manner than other groups.

Peter Herbert, an independent member of the MPA and spokesman for the Society of Black Lawyers, said: "The Met really wants to avoid any allegation of disproportionality so they will seek to explain these figures by whatever nuance they can. The targeting of certain boroughs might be justified in terms of some crime, but it's certainly not justified in terms of all crime."

Left unanswered are several questions. (1) If the arrests caused a reduction of crime in these areas of London, how was this news received by the residents of those areas? In the spirit of the age, a breakdown by race would be in order. (2) Is it more important to have the skin color of our prison population match that of the general population than it is to ask why so many blacks are involved in crime? (3) Are the rights of ordinary Britons regardless of race being violated by these searches?

All of these questions pertain to individual rights, and have been missed by at least one reporter, one editor, and one lawyer I can think of off the top of my head. If we protect individual rights, the rights of racial and ethnic minorities will take care of themselves. Seen in this light, the rights of blacks -- and everyone else in London -- are in quite a bit more trouble than a bunch of cameras are going to cause by themselves....

-- CAV