The weaponisation of "public concern"
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Hutnyck “Critique of Exotica” explores how the UK government used the so called “reform” of the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) under the pretence of anti-racism as a way to further the brutalisation of racialised people by the police. Hutnyck writes “The Act has paved the way for increases in the already over-policed urban areas of Britain, it opens opportunities for a return to the late 1970s provocations of having Police Chiefs and Ministers announce that all blacks are muggers, and introduces and extends the targeting of any groups or social formations that seem set to drift outside the containment of capitalist market economics.” This highlights the problematic viewpoint of the government at the time which viewed centralising state authority and expanding its presence as a “solution” to racist violence on the streets of Britain. Without realising that the state itself, was also responsible for racialised violence. Further exposing racialised people to its brutality and making the streets of Britain more dangerous for racialised people as they were exposed to violence from both the police and racists. This legacy continues on today with the UK government continuing to expand police power in the name of "public good" whilst further harming racialised communities. For example, Priti Patel's Public Order Act would have criminalised protests for being too noisy or causing too much “annoyance” and also widened stop and search powers for police, allowing it to be easier to search people who were convicted of carrying a knife in the past. However, stop and search laws have a well-documented history of targeting young black men, who in London were 19 times more likely to be stopped and searched by police. In short, the state's attempt to act of out "concern" for the public by expanding police powers only further harms racialised people and leads to more violence.