SW1 Bitesize: the Caribbean Carnival in Manchester
Is it racist to ban suspected gang members from a public event?
In anticipation of the Caribbean Carnival taking place in Manchester soon, Greater Manchester Police’s Xcaliber anti-gang task force have issued banning letters to around 50 young men who are a “member of a street gang, affiliated to a street gang, perceived by others to be associated to a street gang, involved in criminal activity, or arrested at the festival 2019/2020/2021, involved or linked to serious youth violence”. Those issued the letters will be refused entry, as has been policy since 2006.
As a result, the Northern Police Monitoring Project have responded with “rage” to this “police racism”, saying that a gang is a “deeply racist construct” which penalises young black boys due to their friendships, interests and culture. Dr Remi Joseph-Salisbury of the NPMP and University of Manchester added that events like this are partly about “resistance to racism, and specifically police racism”, claiming that “events like carnival…are stigmatised” by the police in a way they don’t with similarly sized events with mainly white attendance.
Other groups also condemned the move. Roxy Legane of the group Kids of Colour said it would lead to “racism” at the carnival whilst a coalition of groups signed an open letter saying the letter “sustains and reinforces systemic racism”, that the term gang is used by police as “a dragnet to discriminate and criminalise Black, Brown and minoritised children”, and claim that it is unlawful as it breaches the Equality Act 2010 amongst others.
In total 14 different charities and activist groups have complained that GMP’s actions are racist. They are: the Northern Police Monitoring Project, Kids of Colour, JUSTICE, Alliance for Youth Justice, Big Brother Watch, Defend Digital Me, EQUAL, Fair Trials, Growing Futures, Hackney Account, the Howard League for Penal Reform, Liberty, the Runnymede Trust, and the Zahid Mubarek Trust.
Although they are different, almost all of them are heavily reliant on big foundation grants, especially from charities like Joseph Rowntree or the Barrow Cadbury Trust. Others, like the Alliance for Youth Justice, which is the umbrella organisation for 75 children’s groups, including Barnado’s and the Children’s Commissioner, get grants of taxpayer money; in their case via the government-funded ESRC.
The problem with this is that the Carnival does have a history of (gang) violence. Back in 2018 two men fired a shotgun into a Carnival street party, injuring twelve people, including a 12 year old girl. At another Carnival street party in 2019, police had missiles thrown at them when they tried to arrest a man said to be threatening others with a screwdriver. Again in 2019, a man drunk on tonic wine held a fake gun to the head of a stranger after he refused to give him a cigarette. The Carnival was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to covid.
Far from suffering from a racist criminal justice system, Manchester suffers from too much laxity: just last year two criminals walked free from court. Derick Dapaah and Samuel Mozimbi, both 16 at the time of the crime, set up a deal to buy a watch from two teenagers. Instead Dapaah grabbed one victim around the throat and pressed a fake gun into his head. Mozimbi held a knife to the throat of the other victim. The pair stole numerous valuables and the car keys of their victims.
The victims phoned 999 and armed police spotted the stolen car, leading to a chase, during which the two exceeded speeds of 100mph, drove through red lights, and drove on the wrong side of the road. Eventually they crashed and were arrested.
Dapaah turned out to have a prior conviction for robbery. His DNA was found on the imitation firearm used in the robbery. Due to their age however, both were bailed and it was on bail that Dapaah and three others robbed a student of his new laptop, phone, jacket and driving license. He was also kicked and punched, as well as forced to hand over the passcodes to his devices. Using his cards, the gang then withdrew £400 from a cash machine. The student, who didn’t have insurance on his items, has been left in financial difficulty as a result.
Despite all this, Judge Sarah Johnston spared them both jail, issuing them only with two-year Youth Referral Orders. She defended her decision by saying that the pair might have been acting under pressure from others, that Dapaah had already spent 10 months on remand after the second robbery and that the pair had “unique and complex histories”. Mozimbi had come to Britain from the Congo and had been stabbed before. Both had been issued “threat to life” warnings by police.
The three other robbers with Dapaah in the second offence, aged between 15 and 16, were given: an Intensive Supervision and Surveillance order as well as a curfew, a Youth Referral Order for 18 months plus a six month curfew, and an 18-month Youth Referral Order plus a four month curfew. Judge Johnston said her priority was to “prevent further offences” and that it was up to them “whether the court's trust is rewarded”.
This story exposes how facile the claims of the charities are. Gangs are very much real and not a racist construct; there is a history of violence associated with the Carnival, which makes this move pragmatic rather than racist; and far from the criminal justice problem being too harsh, it is far too lax, allowing violent criminals with repeated offences to escape jail.