Stop and search or stop and engage

Factors influencing community-police engagement around drug supply issues

Jane Fountain, Alastair Roy, Nicole Crompton, Sundari Anitha, Kamlish Patel
Centre for Ethnicity and Health, University of Central Lancashire

The police service in London report a commitment to inspiring confidence from, and responding to the needs of black and minority ethnic communities. They are also committed to tackling the supply of crack cocaine and heroin, with which members of the Jamaican and Turkish communities respectively are strongly identified. Members of these communities report concerns about drug supply issues, but are extremely reluctant to co-operate with the police to address them because they perceive that they are unfairly targeted, particularly by the stop and search strategy. The challenge is to implement a long-term, community engagement programme with strategic level commitment.

Introduction

One of the main priorities of London's Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Drugs Strategy 2003-2006 (MPA, 2002 p3) is to focus effôrt on the drugs causing most harm, specifically crack cocaine and heroin', and key activities to support the aim of identifying and dealing effectively with drug suppliers include focusing on `drug dealers and users who cause the most harm and disruption to communities' (MPA, 2002 p5).
In order to achieve these objectives, MPS stresses the importance of working with the people of London and organisations from the public, private and voluntary sectors `to share knowledge and intelligence to identify problems and responsibilities, and to work together in solving them' (MPA, 2002 p3). This supports one of the key priorities of the National Policing Plan 2005-08 (Home Office, 2004a p5) to provide,
`a citizen focused police service that responds to the needs of communities cancl individuals, especially victims and witnesses, and inspires public confidence in the police, particularly among ethnic minority communities'.
Members of some black and minority ethnic communities' have expressed concern about drug supply within them (Bashford et al, 2003 pp23-25). However, this paper will show that the perceptions of, and stereotypes attached to some of these communities in relation to drug supply issues have implications that hamper the police service's endeavours to engage with them.
A pilot research project was devised to give an indication of the factors affecting the Metropolitan Police Service's dual aims of focusing on crack cocaine and heroin supply, and engaging with those communities that are associated with the supply of these drugs. Although most research reports on UK drug markets do not specify the ethnicity of drug suppliers (for example, Edmunds et al, 1996; Lupton et al, 2002), criminal intelligence (NCIS, 2003; Pearson & Hobbs, 2001) report that those of Jamaican and Turkish heritage are strongly associated with, respectively, the supply of crack cocaine and heroin within the UK, and the Home Office (2003a p22) states that Jamaicans are overrepresented as street dealers' of crack cocaine.Therefore, the study focused on the Jamaican and Turkish heritage communities in the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Haringey respectively, in order to identify their perceived consequences of their identification with drug markets. Lambeth and Haringey were chosen because their populations ' include relatively high proportions of Jamaican and Turkish people (Haringey Council, 2005; London Borough of Lambeth, 2005).

Methods

The study consulted with members of the Jamaican community in Lambeth and the Turkish community in Haringey, and with professionals working with them, in order to identify the factors facilitating or hindering community members' willingness to engage with police and community initiatives aimed at tackling drug supply.
Eight focus groups were held with those of Jamaican and Turkish heritage. Participants were each paid £15 (approximately €22/US$28) to compensate them for their time. The sample comprised 23 Jamaicans and 28 Turkish people, with an age range of 16-71. Separate focus groups were held for those of Jamaican and Turkish heritage, and for young people, women, men, and older people. Other than the focus group for young people, the focus groups for Turkish people were conducted partly or wholly in Turkish and a translator was used. The themes devised to stimulate the discussions were willingness to engage with activity related to drug supply led by the community, or by the police, or a partnership between the two; perceptions of police attitudes to the community; experiences of law enforcement activities and the effect on the community; perceptions of media representations of the community and the effect on the community; knowledge of assistance and support for the community around issues relating to the supply of drugs; and suggestions for service development.
Themed interviews were conducted with 12 professionals who worked with the Jamaican community in Lambeth and the Turkish community in Haringey. The sample for each community comprised a community development worker, a drug worker, a youth worker, a religious worker (a minister of religion and a social activities organiser in a mosque), a community organisation representative, and a police officer. Most of these interviews were conducted by telephone, and were based on the themes listed above for focus groups with community members.
The data from the focus groups and interviews were analysed thematically, according to the themes that most consistently arose and that were pertinent to the project's aims and objectives.The analysis is therefore firmly grounded in the data received from the study's informants.The use of a thematic analysis makes it possible not only to report on the issues that arise for the Jamaican and Turkish communities as a consequence of their identification with the supply of drugs, but also to identify areas of consensus and divergence on specific issues.

Factors influencing community-police engagement

There was a great deal of support from both Jamaican and Turkish focus group participants for community-led interventions to tackle drug-related issues in their communities. The Jamaican women in particular were extremely concerned about drug supply and the associated gun crime. The professionals working with the two communities agreed that community-led interventions would be positively received, and perceived a recent increasing willingness among the Jamaican and Turkish communities to engage with these. It was reported that Turkish people were beginning to accept that drug use and the related crime within their community must be addressed, and perceived increasing drug-related violence was cited as the incentive for the Jamaican community to do so:
`There will be a willingness to engage, because in the last three weeks there have been three murders of young people [in Lambeth) - all drugs-related. Every stabbing, gun crime and death here is drug-related. It has reached a stage where the community is in a state of shock.' (Minister of religion in the Jamaican community)
Although community-led interventions were enthusiastically supported, none of the Jamaican and Turkish focus group participants, regardless of age and gender, were prepared to engage with police-led drug-related activity, and were reluctant to engage with community-police partnership initiatives, stressing that others in their communities would also be unwilling to do so. The reasons most often given for this stance during discussions with community members and the professionals working with them were perceived police racism and harassment, perceived police ineffectiveness in tackling drug supply, the effect of media representations of the two communities, lack of police-community communication, the reluctance to inform on other members of the community, the ethnicity of police officers and community wardens, and differing police and community members' priorities.
While the Jamaican andTurkish focus group participants acknowledged that some members of their communities were involved in the distribution of drugs, they reported that all members of these communities were stereotyped and disproportionately targeted by the police. A member of the focus group for older Jamaicans commented, `their [police] attitude is - a black community, so it must be into drugs,' and a young Turkish male thought that,
(The police think] we are importing stuff [drugs] and selling stuff just because they have caught a few people from there (Turkey]... They don't get involved with drugs because they are Turkish, they get involved because they think they can get rich easy' (Turkish young people's group).
Relative to population size, those whose ethnic appearance is `black' are six times more likely to be stopped and searched' than white people (Home Office, 2004b p7). In addition, (Home Office, 2004b p.28), the reason given by police officers for stops is more likely to be drugs for those of black and minority ethnic appearance than for those who appear white. Reflecting this, the barrier most commonly cited by community members and the professionals working with them to community members' participation in any initiatives that included the police was being stopped and searched. Being Jamaican or Turkish and male (particularly if young), wearing particular clothes, driving an expensive car, and being in particular locations were pointed out as factors that could trigger this activity. It was clear from the discussions that the younger members of these communities were particularly angry, frustrated and humiliated by the perceived targeting of them by the police, but all age groups thought that this situation affected their whole community. 'It makes the community hate them [the police] even more' was a typical comment from the young Jamaicans, and the effect of police activity targeted at the Turkish community was thought by some to result in demoralisation, a loss of confidence, and nervousness in the presence of police officers.
Informants reported that the unwillingness to work with the police was rooted in the Jamaican community's historically poor relationship with them:
'Fundamentally, there is a lot of mistrust in their [police] intentions towards the black community, and there is no belief that the policing of the black community is genuinely to bring about law and order and trying to improve the situation... The general mistrust of the police - you are looking at deaths in custody and racist killing and very obvious racist treatment in custody and within the CJS (criminal justice system) in general.' (drug worker in the Jamaican community)
Informants from the Turkish community reported that reluctance to work with the police was partly attributable to their experiences of oppressive policing in Turkey. Community members 'are not comfortable talking to police because of the way it is at home' (Turkish, older people's group).
A frequent comment during discussions about police activity discriminating against and targeting the Jamaican and Turkish communities, particularly from members of the Turkish community and the professionals working with them, was that these actions were all the more unacceptable because they were ineffective in terms of tackling the supply of drugs:
I could see even yesterday peóple pointing out areas that have drug dealing which hasn't actually been touched by the police. _when when you see people buying and selling and dealing in drugs in the community, obviously they feel insecure and they feel that enough hasn't been done.' (Mosque worker in the Turkish community)
The majority of focus group participants and the professionals working with them perceived that many media portrayals of the Jamaican and Turkish communities exaggerated their involvement in drug supply and stereotyped all members, particularly in terms of drug-related issues. A Jamaican male reported that, 'The media portrays (all] Jamaicans as drug dealers. The gun situation is hyped up and linked to crack', and a Turkish youth worker added, The image about Turkish and Kurdish people is... they tend to form kind of youth gangs, beat people up, use drugs, sell drugs... and it's not a good image... when you say "Turkish and Kurdish young people" they only think two things: `youth gangs and drugs"'.
In addition,. many community members firmly believed that media reports headlined the ethnicity of drug dealers only when they were Jamaican or Turkish, but did not emphasise this when they were from other ethnic groups. Dil et al (2005 p60) also report this perception from a study among the Turkish-speaking and Kurdish communities in north London.
The community members were angry that others, including police officers, perceived them as connected to drugs and to Jamaican yardies3 or the 'Turkish mafia' because of media stereotypes, and some of the Turkish people added that the connection made them anxious about how others related to them. The Turkish focus group participants and some of the professionals working with them also linked media stereotyping of their community to physical and verbal forms of racist abuse, an effect of negative media cover also reported in relation to asylum seekers in the UK by ICAR (2004). Many informants were extremely concerned about the effect of media stereotyping, especially on the young members in terms of employment prospects, and frustration was expressed by some that they were powerless to challenge the media.
Professionals working with both the Turkish and Jamaican communities reported that the experience of negative media reports affected the willingness of organisations working in those communities to promote their work through the media. Some suggested enlisting the support of media they viewed as credible, such as BBC radio and television and the Guardian newspaper. Informants of the current study, and those of Dil et al (2005 p37; p60), perceived that the local Turkish press report drugs and crime in a more `sensational' manner than the English language media, and a professional working with the Jamaican community also described coverage by a local English language newspaper in this way.
Lack of communication between the police and the communities was identified as a barrier to engagement by some of the professionals. For example,
'[The Turkish community] would like to know what the police is doing about drugs, drug-related issues, crime, the availability of drugs... they are just not clear about what the police are doing around these issues... they [the police] should go to the community and tell them what they have been doing apart from enforcement' (community development worker in the Turkish community).
That said, the police officers working with the two communities listed attempts to improve police-community communication, such as holding public meetings and establishing forums that address community concerns.These attempts appeared limited in Haringey, where the language barrier was reported to be hampering efforts. In Lambeth, initiatives that informed the Jamaican community about police activity included leaflets and information via local media, and briefing officers 'so that when the community ask them what is going on, they are able to communicate clearly'.
Although they did not condone drug dealing, several focus group participants - particularly the Jamaicans - did not want to work with the police because they believed this meant they would be asked to become police informers and, as one of the older Jamaicans put it, `tell on your own people Concern about being discovered to be a police informer was also reported to hinder participation in initiatives involving the police.
Members of black and minority ethnic communities are under-represented in all grades in the police service (Home Office, 2004b p8), and some of the Jamaican community members suggested that more Jamaican police officers may help community-police liaison initiatives. Others disagreed, reporting that a Jamaican police officer would be ostracised by their community, and doubted that more Jamaicans would join the police force, because deterioration of the police-community relationship 'has gone too far for our community people to be in the police' (Jamaican, men's group).
A few Jamaican focus group participants thought that Jamaican community wardens' served as a useful and trusted link between the community and the police. Two of the professionals working with the Jamaican community were less enthusiastic, however, one commenting that young people,
`...just class them as some other police because of the way they are carrying on. They are not carrying on like your own Jamaican background... they are trained up to walk and talk a certain way. So the youth think "we are not from the same planet and we don't need your help"' (youth worker in the Jamaican community).
Some of the professionals thought that, in a partnership situation (such as crime and disorder reduction partnerships' and community safety teams`), police priorities would take precedence over the communities because, such initiatives must fulfil pre-set criteria and meet targets. It was stressed that, to attract community members, partnerships must address the issues the community prioritised, which included open street dealing and the 'Mr Bigs,' and the social factors that could result in involvement in selling drugs, such as poverty and unemployment.
In summary, although the barriers listed above greatly restrict the Jamaican and Turkish communities' willingness to participate in initiatives on drug supply-related issues that include the police, especially if they are police-led, there is evidence that some members of these communities are prepared to consider a joint working relationship, albeit with caveats, where police and community priorities coincide, especially in terms of tackling street drug dealing and crack houses.

Community support initiatives

The 12 professionals working with the Jamaican and Turkish communities described a variety of recent, current, and planned initiatives implicitly or explicitly supporting and involving the communities in drug supply-related issues. These were funded from a variety of community safety, and crime and disorder reduction partnership sources. In Lambeth, they included a project that engages young Jamaican men in order to give them a sense of purpose about their community and to take responsibility for what they do within it, a project that assists young Jamaican men to undertake higher education courses, an outreach team working with community organisations to address the high proportion of people from the African
and Caribbean communities into the criminal justice system, action (including training) by a drug service on local housing estates and with tenants' associations to address the problems they are facing, work by a drug service with Jamaican women who are in prison for importing drugs, and support that is police-led:
`We try to identify the stakeholders within a particular issue and work with them, whether we provide financial support, or through staff or joint working, or offering accommodation for meetings... When we put a plan together [for tackling drug supply issues], we will look at support mechanisms to attempt to ensure we do not create a vacuum into which other suppliers will come. So after enforcement, we work with the local authority to try and provide some urban regeneration in that area. It is about empowering the community to take Ownership of particular issues... we don't just treat the symptom instead of the cause.' (police officer in the Jamaican community)
In Haringey, initiatives targeting the Turkish community included the dissemination (including a public meeting) of a report and video of the results of a research project among young drug users and dealers, presentations at residents' meetings and community centres by a local drug service, a community safety event including a discussion about drug supply, in order to collect information on what the Turkish community thinks of this issue and how they want to solve the associated problems, and a drug service that is in contact with other black and minority ethnic communities to ascertain how their experiences of drug-related issues can inform the Turkish community.
However, awareness of such initiatives among the Jamaican and Turkish focus group participants was spectacularly low. While the community members may not have related some of those listed above directly to drug supply, it is a cause for concern that of a total of 51, only six (five of them Turkish) were able to name a source they could approach for support on drug supply-related issues.

Barriers to establishing and sustaining support initiatives

The professionals working with the Jamaican and Turkish communities identified four major barriers to establishing and sustaining support initiatives around drug supply-related issues: funding, problems engaging with the communities, including the credibility of those attempting to engage, achieving accurate community representation within engagement initiatives, and the operation of partnerships.
Many of the professionals pointed out that funding issues were a barrier to setting up and sustaining relevant initiatives, particularly because, as reported by other commentators on this issue (Fountain et al, 2003; Sangster et al, 2002), funding for projects aimed at black and minority ethnic communities is frequently short-term and,
are never built into the infrastructure, so they are quite easy to get rid of and also vulnerable... we have to have a realistic and long-term strategy that can undo the problems of 20 plus years' (drug worker in the Jamaican community).
Difficulties in engaging community members even when funding had been forthcoming were also reported. For example, a community development worker had problems persuading members of a Turkish community organisation to see the value of drug-related community engagement initiatives because `they don't understand what we are trying to do, they believe that we are working with the police'. A respondent working with the Jamaican community in Lambeth thought that community members did not engage with initiatives because they felt powerless to effect any change.
Some informants discussed the credibility of those who were attempting to communicate with the communities about drug-related issues. It was emphasised that such messengers must have respect from the communities to engage successfully with them. While members of the Turkish community and those working with them agreed that information would be best received from those with the appropriate professional qualifications, several of the professionals working with the Jamaican community reported problems in identifying appropriate messengers for those young Jamaicans whose role models they perceived to include musicians who promote a gang and violence culture.
Several of those working with the Jamaican community stressed that those community members who participated in engagement and partnership initiatives, and were therefore perceived to be speaking on behalf of the community, do not necessarily represent the views of the majority, because they are frequently non-elected and such positions attract only those who have the confidence to participate in the relevant forums.
More partnership or multi-agency working was a popular response from professionals when asked what was required in terms of service development to support communities around drug supply issues. A number of agencies were suggested as being suitable for partnership work, including community organisations, schools, community safety teams, drug and alcohol action teams (DAATs)', various local authority services, and local drug services. Nevertheless, previous experiences of these had not been without problems One of these concerned ownership of the work:
`We need to know that if we do something, that it is official to the community. We tried to work with some organisations in our community and they tried to kind of steal our results for their own use' (youth worker in the Turkish community).
Several of the professionals also pointed out that some partnerships do not operate as planned, because workloads mean that some statutory services do not fully participate, and co-operation is affected by some organisations in the partnership having to compete for the same funding.
In summary, discussions with the professionals highlighted that, although there are some current examples of good practice, effective engagement with the Jamaican and Turkish communities on drug supply-related issues is patchy and ad hoc. Suggestions to overcome the barriers to establishing and sustaining support initiatives were wide-ranging, but taken together were aimed overall at identifying the communities' needs, particularly in terms of policing; funding initiatives to inform and recruit community members in order that communities are accurately represented on the appropriate forums; and strategic level commitment to the establishment of effective partnerships and multi-agency working. The overriding principle of these solutions was best articulated by a police officer working in the Jamaican community: 'It is all about working with the community, not doing things to the community' (emphasis in original).

Discussion

The financial resources available for this study meant that focus groups with 51 members of the Jamaican and Turkish communities could be held. While participants were chosen to represent different age groups and genders, it cannot be guaranteed that the results from this component of the study can be extrapolated to all members of these communities, nor, without further research, to other black and minority ethnic populations in London and elsewhere. Similarly, the representativeness of the 12 professionals working with these communities cannot be guaranteed. Despite these limitations, however, the results have provided data that could be used to inform a larger-scale survey, and the issues raised can inform future developments of community engagement activities targeting drug supply among black and minority ethnic communities throughout the UK.
The Jamaican and Turkish communities in Lambeth and Haringey respectively perceive that they are being disproportionately affected and harmed by drug supply, perceptions of them as drug suppliers, and action against drug suppliers. Activity against drug supply by the MPS is targeted at crack cocaine and heroin, and, because criminal intelligence reveals that members of the Jamaican and Turkish communities are disproportionately involved in the supply of these drugs, at these communities. While members of the communities are highly concerned about drug supply issues in their communities, they perceive that they are victimised by the police. Perceived stereotyping by the media exacerbates the perception of persecution. While the police report a commitment to inspiring confidence from, and responding to the needs of black and minority ethnic communities, members of the Jamaican and Turkish communities' perceptions of persecution are seriously damaging efforts, particularly those involving the police, to engage them in drug supply-related issues.
The challenge is to reconcile these issues and to establish effective local strategic partnerships to engage communities actively in setting local priorities and addressing local police actions. This discussion examines the crucial issues to be considered to achieve these aims and to build on current support initiatives.

Perceptions of persecution

The stop and search strategy clearly results in members of the Jamaican and Turkish communities' perception that they are unfairly targeted by the police because of racism and stereotyping. A starting point for progress towards community-police cooperation and mutual understanding could be wide dissemination of reports on progress by the police service on the implementation of the National Policing Plan, particularly the aim of inspiring confidence in the police among black and minority ethnic communities (Home Office, 2004a p5), and on adherence to the Race Relations (amendment) Act 2000. Improvement of ethnic monitoring is needed if convincing evidence that stops and searches are not conducted on a racist basis is to be provided, however. The methods currently used - a police officer's opinion based on appearance and imprecise ethnic categories (Home Office, 2003b; 2004b) - are inadequate for monitoring purposes. This can be illustrated by a young Nigerian man who arrived for the focus group for young Jamaicans and was told by other members that he did not fit the criteria for participation. He commented that he should be allowed to stay because, `the police can't tell the difference between Africans and Jamaicans - I get stopped because they think I am Jamaican'.
Persecution by the media was also reported to this study by members of the Jamaican and Turkish communities and the professionals working with them, and information on the success or otherwise of strategies addressing this should be shared. For example, a forum in Lambeth responsible for launching a community-led partnership campaign calling for the removal of crack cocaine and heroin markets in the area suggests that other such partnerships are made aware of potential media interest and should `develop a media strategy that identifies key messages that you want to get across. Be ready to develop a clear message that can be presented repeatedly and in response to negative publicity' (GLADA, 2004 p41).

Intelligence sharing

Where police and community priorities coincide, community members are more likely to become involved in initiatives that include the police. The challenge here is to build on mutual priorities, through a process of sharing intelligence and the
October 2007 © Pavilion Journals (Brighton) Ltd • Volume 7 Issue 3 • Drugs and Alcohol Today 43
Stop and search or stop and engage?
implementation and management of partnerships, to inspire local confidence and trust in the police and assist the community to feel part of the solution, rather than responsible for the problem. It must be stressed that the definition of `intelligence' in this instance is a shared understanding of the dynamics of the target community - including the diversity within it - and their behaviours, values, and beliefs when faced with addressing drug supply.The community also needs to understand the rationale for police tactics, such as the methods that must be employed in order to retrieve drugs from the mouth' of an individual, which looks aggressive to passers-by, and the evidence that is needed before sellers in a highly visible open drug market can be arrested.The aim of sharing such intelligence is to achieve more sensitive, effective policing, to increase trust between the police and the community, and to facilitate channels of communication between the two.

Community engagement

Although there are some useful practice guides to address engaging communities in tackling drug supply issues, particularly in relation to crack cocaine (for example, GLADA, 2004; Home Office, 2003a) and in the recommendations made by relevant research reports (for example, Lupton et al, 2002), there is a lack of disseminated, evidenced models for working with black and minority ethnic communities in relation to drug supply issues. Such models are likely to be increasingly necessary with the implementation of antisocial legislation, particularly relating to crack houses (Home Office, 2002a), crime and disorder reduction partnership audits (UK Government crime reduction website, 2005), and National Drug Strategy targets for tackling drug supply and its effect on communities (Home Office, 2002b).
The task ahead is a long-term one, and its success and sustainability requires local and national strategic level commitment and investment, as demonstrated by the community engagement approach currently employed by the Department of Health and the Centre for Ethnicity and Health at the University of Central Lancashire (Bashford et al, 2003; Winters & Patel, 2003). This approach radically challenges traditional needs assessment and consultation processes, that 'do not involve the communities whose needs are being assessed, beyond using members as interviewees' and are conducted by a researcher who `parachutes' into the community `thereby raising expectations that there may be some change, then disappears to produce a report and academic papers with no long-term impact' (Fountain et al, 2004 p66).
The major aim of the Centre for Ethnicity and Health's approach to community engagement is to create an environment in which communities (individuals and groups) and agencies can work equitably together to address an issue of mutual concern. A number of key ingredients are necessary for this process. Individuals from the target community - not necessarily those perceived as `community leaders' but those who represent the diversity within a community and have access to its members - are recruited and capacity built by the provision of regular support, appropriate resources, and, where possible, accredited training by an external facilitator. From the outset and throughout, there is explicit involvement in the engagement process of local agencies responsible for commissioning, planning, and delivering services. Where all the ingredients are present, the sustainability of the work can greatly contribute not only to the engagement of local people in the planning and development of new services, but assist in organisational change processes for agencies. These include effective ethnic monitoring, workforce development, training and practice initiatives, and the development of a range of policies and practices that involve local communities from the outset. These changes therefore assist organisations to meet their obligations under the UK's Race Relations (amendment) Act 2000.
The engagement process in itself will have a number of outcomes, both for the communities and agencies involved: raising awareness of the issue in question and the local services available, reducing stigma, fear, and denial of the issue for a community, identifying and articulating the needs of the target community, ensuring local ownership and clear plans to implement the findings of the needs assessment; and the sustainability of the partnerships that have been established and the work that has been identified by the needs assessments.
In the case of drug supply-related issues, local participants in a community engagement project should include not only community members, and the local police service, but also the local DAAT and crime and disorder reduction partnership. In addition, local authority services and regeneration partnerships should be involved, as drug supply in a locality impedes regeneration, including damaging community confidence and adding to the poor reputation of the area (Lupton et al, 2002).
The application of the community engagement approach to those black and minority ethnic communities identified with the supply of drugs will create a route for them to engage in crime reduction initiatives and identify the support that they require to participate. Longer-term outcomes could include breaking clown the barriers that inhibit members of black and minority ethnic communities becoming police officers (Stone & Tuffin, 2000), and ensure better representation of these communities on local bodies.

Notes

1) The authors are very conscious that various terms are used to refer to the diverse communities in the UK. We prefer the term 'black and minority ethnic'. This reflects that our concern is not only with those for whom 'black' is a political term, denoting those who identify around a basis of skin colour distinction or who may face discrimination because of this or their culture: 'black and minority ethnic' also acknowledges the diversity that exists within these communities, and includes a wider range of those who may not consider their identity to be black but who nevertheless constitute a distinct ethnic group.

2) The UK police have the power to stop and then search suspected offenders under a range of legislation, including the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

3) A yardie is a 'member of a violent criminal organisation, involved especially with illegal drugs, that started in Jamaica and now also operates in the UK'www.dictionary.co.uk (accessed October 20041).

4) The role of community wardens is to provide a highly visible, reassuring presence to deter crime and anti-social behaviour, and build links with the local community. The wardens work closely with the police, reporting crime and suspicious behaviour.

5) Local crime and disorder reduction partnerships (CDRPs) are formed by a combination of the local authority, police and probation services, health authority, residents' associations, the voluntary sector, drug and alcohol action teams' and other local organisations and businesses, to develop and implement strategies for tackling crime and disorder on a local level. CDRPs consult local communities on a range of matters, including crime, nuisance, and anti-social behaviour.

6) Local community safety teams are an element of CDRPs, and are responsible for making a local area safer for all those who live, trade and travel there by addressing not only crime but also, for example, road safety and less tangible issues such as fear of crime.

7) Drug and alcohol action teams (DAATs) are responsible for implementing the UK Government's National Drugs Strategy at a local level.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Government Office for London Drugs Team (GOLDT) for funding the research from which the data for this paper were taken. Catherine McQuade and Eleanor Peters, formerly of the Centre for Ethnicity and Health, are also thanked for their contributions to the study. The views expressed, however, are those of the authors.

Address for correspondence

Professor Jane Fountain
Centre for Ethnicity and Health University of Central Lancashire C/o DrugScope
40 Bermondsey Street
London SE1 3UD
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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