13.07.1995

State’s muggers prepare

Gearing up for attacks on working class youth

METROPOLITAN police commissioner Sir Paul Condon has caused an outcry by stating that 80% of muggers in areas of London he had studied were black. The statement came in a letter to 40 black ‘community leaders’ and bodies such as the Commission for Racial Equality and police consultative groups, inviting them to a conference to discuss an ‘anti-mugging initiative’.

Home Secretary Michael Howard supported his decision to make the statement, which was further covered in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. The paper described his remarks as “breaking a taboo”. Most of the objectors, while agreeing that the figures were probably accurate, for reasons of ‘political correctness’ did not want them published.

For example Jack Straw, Labour’s home affairs spokesperson, remarked: “The statistics of the kind he quoted have been well known for many years ... But the aim of the debate must be to reduce crime levels, not to exacerbate racial tensions.” The difficulty all these gentlemen have is that they believe that crime is the problem, and its main solution must be to stop the criminal.

In reality crime is a symptom of the alienation felt by all workers under capitalism, but particularly acutely by the unemployed youth trapped in the decaying city areas. It is often further exacerbated when they seek escape through drug use and need to fund this addictive habit. In London the majority of this most alienated section, like their victims, may well be black. In many other cities they are almost all white. Home office statistics show that around 15% of all males between 16 and 24 have committed some street crime; there is no significant distinction between the figures for black and white youth.

Condon himself admits that white males are disproportionately responsible for other crimes, particularly burglary. So why did he raise the question of colour at all? Ironically, because he was sensitive to the anti-racist ‘political correctness’ of the liberal bourgeoisie. He wanted to warn - preferably to involve - black ‘community leaders’ before his state thugs used their hammer tactics against the dispossessed this summer.

The point is not so much that the police are racist: of course many of them are, and they revel in the opportunity to beat up young blacks; rather it is that they are acting on behalf of an oppressive state in its attempt to batter the youth into submission.

Unlike the liberal bourgeoisie, we are not afraid of stating the truth - the only way to arrive at the correct solution. That solution lies not in hammering working class youth to maintain capitalist law and order, but to mobilise them to fight back against the source of their alienation - against a society based only on profit for the few, not on human need.

Alan Fox