force, The main pillar of law and order in Britain has traditionally been working class respect for the British bobby and "the best system of justice in the world". The growing militancy of British workers and the resulting growth of state repression has changed all this. And one factor above all has exposed the police force and courts for what they are the systematic, brutal police aggression againCertain sections of the bourgeoisie, especially those in the media, whose job it is to preserve the impartial, benevolent image of worry that perhaps the police have been given too long a leash in dealing with black people. They see that the innate racism of the imperialist state and its agents can be counter-productive if it in turn generates a higher consciousness among blacks.
This is basically the viewpoint of Police Power and Rack People, a paperback published by Granada in Panther Books, and written by a Swnday Times journalist, Derek Humphry "I am critical of the police force in this book because I wish to respect it. I am critical of the law, lawyers and courts because of a The first part of the book uses case histories to document the standard repertoire of police tactics against black people; racist abuse, beatings, provoked assaults, fabricated evidence, planting (or "agriculture" as the pigs would say), the use of dogs, agent provorateurs in black organisations, special branch and the notorious Special Patrol Groups - the nucleus of a European style para-military elite police force of the future, WIDER AUDIENCE It's good that these facts previously confined to the left and underground press, should he available to a wider audience, even if the Relations Council's files than to any attempt to choose the most politically significant. It seeins strange, for example, that in a book written "in memory of David Oluwale", the Nigerian brutally murdered by the Leeds police, there is no analysis of his case while a whole chapter is given to the wrongful arrest of a Nigerian diplomat. Perhaps the facts in Oluwale's case were just too damning? Humphry's explanation of police racism is a bitle naive - tor lom the problem bois down to too mach cascretion beate area to young overworked police men inadequately trained in "race relations". He emphasises continually how the police "needlessly provoke" young blacks Of course this is the problem for liberals like Humphry the police are not tactful enough. But by considering the police in isolation, he can ignore the real problem, tbat capitalism thrives on the superexploitation of black workers and the only way to maintain lus exploitation is by using the full repressive power of the hourgeois state one way or another.
REFORMS Humphry gives a long list of reforms needed to "liberalise" the police. But who is going to implement these reforins? He himself shows the complicity of both Tory and Labour Home Secretaries in condoning the worst excesses of their loyal servants and blocking any independent compizints proced we. While he carnestly prepares a manual for skinning a tiger clawby claw, Heath & Co. the Criminal Justice Act (hardly mentioned in this book), which are designed precisely to give the police more power over such things as "verbals", which Humphry sees as Of course some of his reforms will be implemented - the ones dealing with better pubic relations and a better informed police force but its not hard to see who will benefit most ary included to give the book creditatility istic of this system is that those who exercise power need to co-erce, to co-opt and to bood. wink people into acquiescing in their own Institute of Race Relations who has spent "considerable time contributing to police training courses and senior officers seminans", The basis of all Humphry's reforms is an alliance between liberal policemen and mod erate blacks. As the example of the army's tactics in Ulter show such an ailiance is premised on the militants being smasbed And for that task racist police must be given full rein. Militants like Tony Soares, currently facing an incitement to murder charge, will continue to be rail-roaded. And there will he more black "moderates" wrongfully And it the police fail to keep black people in line, either through being too obviously racist, or too weak, the army is always waiting in the wings. As this book notes, one of the items on the agenda at this years Senior Army Officers Course at Oxford University was "Racial Strife in the UK and the USA" The black ghettoes are the obvious larger for the theories of Brigadier Kitson, head of the Army's infantry school in Wilton. In fact, one apposite sentence from Kitson throws more light on the essence of the problem than Derek Humphry's entire book: "The law" says Kitson, "should be used as just another weapon in the government's arsenal, and in this case it becomes little more than a propaganda cover for the dis posal of unwanted members of the public."
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