Met Police's 'disproportionate' gangs matrix making crime more likely, finds report

Controversial database deemed counterproductive because it 'increases disdain for police', which can in turn lead to increased criminal offending, campaigners warn

May Bulman
Social Affairs Correspondent
Wednesday 19 September 2018 00:08 BST
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Research by campaign group StopWatch suggests the gangs matrix is counterproductive because it ‘increases disdain for the police’, which can in turn lead to increased criminal offending
Research by campaign group StopWatch suggests the gangs matrix is counterproductive because it ‘increases disdain for the police’, which can in turn lead to increased criminal offending

The “heavy-handed” targeting of predominantly young black men and boys listed on the Metropolitan Police’s “gangs matrix” is having the counterproductive effect of driving up crime, a new report has warned.

Research by campaign group StopWatch suggests the database, set up in the wake of the 2011 London riots in a bid to curb gang violence, is counterproductive because it “increases disdain for the police”, which can in turn lead to increased criminal offending.

The matrix, which labels young people as “gang nominals”, holds the details of around 3,500 subjects as young as 12, and each is given a green, amber or red rating denoting their perceived risk of violence.

The report finds that they are subjected to “relentless” stop and search encounters, sometimes multiple times a day, which are often “without demonstrable legitimate purpose”, impacting on the trust young people have in the police.

Katrina Ffrench, chief executive of StopWatch, said to be on the matrix was “to be literally black listed”.

“It means that the young people on it are marked out for harassment and humiliation. It’s a highly racialised stigma that follows someone through every aspect of their life,” she said.

“Not only is the matrix completely ineffective at combating the crime it claims to want to tackle, our research suggests it makes crime more likely.

“The young people we work with describe being stopped and searched as a daily occurrence, like putting on clothes – some people report being stopped and searched as many as three times a day.

“I think it’s hard for most people to imagine that level of invasion of personal space and the mental strain the young people experience.”

The findings add weight to a critical report from Amnesty International in May warning that the matrix was “racially discriminatory” and was causing people with no links to crime to be wrongly stigmatised while the perpetrators go free.

The report found that three quarters of those listed on the matrix were black, despite the ethnic group making up just 13 per cent of London’s wider population and a quarter of those prosecuted for serious youth violence, while 15 per cent are children.

StopWatch said the frequency with which young people reported being searched was “alarming” and was directly cited as a cause for increasing criminal offending by a number of the people interviewed.

One individual, known as Ricky, told researchers: “I’ve been stopped and searched, probably, I don’t know, a couple of hundred times, probably, I don’t know.

“Used to get it regular, I’ve got a conviction because I was stopped and searched three times in one day. Now if you’re stopped and searched three times in one day, how are you going to feel?

“I flipped, I got done for public disorder and I was thinking, I haven’t actually done nothing, you have stopped me three times in one day.”

The report also raises specific concerns about how the rights of children are being breached, stating that the stop and search encounters they experience indicate a “deficit in knowledge” and understanding by police officers about their statutory obligations to children in their care.

This “disturbing lack of awareness” about the importance of ensuring and safeguarding the welfare of children adversely impacts on an officer’s ability to positively and effectively engage with children, it states.

StopWatch said the matrix should be urgently reviewed by the mayor of London “with a view to scrapping it”.

A spokesperson for the Met Police said the aim of the matrix was to reduce gang-related violence and “prevent young lives being lost”. They said the force constantly reviewed and updated the processes involved in maintaining the database.

In relation to suggestions of potential racial disproportionality of the matrix, they said it had actively engaged with Labour MP David Lammy, Amnesty International and the Information Commissioner's office to help understand the approach taken.

With respect to concerns about stop and search, the spokesperson said: “The primary purpose of stop and search is to enable officers to either allay or confirm their suspicions about an individual without having to arrest them.

“Effectiveness must therefore reflect where suspicion has been allayed and an unnecessary arrest, which is more intrusive, has been avoided; or where suspicion has been confirmed and the object is found or a relevant crime is detected.”

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