I Note They Don't Say Exactly What It Will Make Them 'More Vulnerable' To...

Plans to disclose the ethnicity and immigration status of criminal suspects in the UK have been condemned by race campaigners for setting a dangerous precedent for “dog-whistle politics”, which will make “Black and brown communities more vulnerable”.

To what? Those who don’t come into contact with the criminal justice system won’t have anything to worry about, so why should anyone concern themselves with those who do, since they got there by being criminals? 

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has welcomed new police guidelines released on Wednesday which encourage forces to release the race and nationality of those charged in high-profile cases. It is meant to combat misinformation on social media, which spread last summer after the murder of three schoolgirls in Southport. False information about the killer’s nationality, religion and asylum status fuelled widespread unrest throughout the country.

It is, of course, all the usual suspects who are raging about it, which tells you a lot. Just look at this line-up of grotesques:

Enny Choudhury, the co-head of legal at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said: “Releasing the ethnicity of everyone suspected of serious crimes will … simply fuel mistrust, deepen divisions, and make Black and brown communities more vulnerable to prejudice and harm. “Some point to cases like Southport, where rumours were quashed by releasing specific information. But building a blanket policy around this is dangerous. It turns race into a variable in policing and public debate – when we know the vast majority of serious crimes, including sexual offences, are committed by white men."

Followed by yet another cosy clique: 

Peter Herbert, from the Society of Black Lawyers, questioned the role of the police around issues of ethnicity and nationality when forces still face allegations of institutional racism.

And finally, an example of where it all started to go wrong for the police in this country: 

The former Metropolitan police chief superintendent Dal Babu has warned of the “unintended consequences” of the new guidance, which he said could lead to more online speculation in cases where these details are not released. “The danger is there will be an expectation for police to release information on every single occasion,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

That’s three people who’s opinion on race should be discounted immediately , since they are all race hustlers extraordinaire. 

Maybe They Are Just More Dangerous Than Previously Thought?

The treatment of autistic people who are referred to the government’s deradicalisation scheme could be in breach of equality laws, a human rights charity has claimed. The home secretary has been warned that Prevent and Channel, the multi-agency follow-on programme, which seek to identify people at risk of extremism, are overreporting neurodivergent people.

In a pre-action letter to the Home Office, Rights & Security International (RSI) said it was “deeply concerned about a potential ongoing failure to collect and analyse data on the protected characteristics of those referred to Prevent and that this constitutes an ongoing failure to comply with their public sector equality duty”.

But maybe the prevalence of them on the list simply means that the public perception of autistic people as harmless wierdoes obsessed with dinosaurs or rail timetables - thanks to film & tv - is wrong?

RSI has argued that the failure to collect adequate data to support equality monitoring constitutes a breach of the home secretary and police’s public sector equality duty. The duty is the requirement to have “due regard” to the equality objectives in section 149 of the Equality Act, which include the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share protected characteristics and those who do not.

Pretty difficult to do when they are doing this sort of thing: 

Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has voiced his concerns that a “staggeringly high” number of autistic people are referred to Prevent. He has cited terrorism cases in which the defendants were autistic, including 17-year-old Lloyd Gunton, who declared himself an Islamic State soldier and was sentenced to life in prison for preparing a vehicle and knife attack in Cardiff in 2018.

Should someone who does this not be referred to Prevent then? Just because they have, or may later get, a diagnosis?

A Home Office spokesperson said the government was reviewing the Prevent programme in light of concerns over neurodivergence. “We understand that those referred to Prevent often present with a range of vulnerabilities, and we take our safeguarding duties very seriously.

I think you are a bit confused about who exactly are the truly vulnerable here…