Report - Guardian

136 The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005Michel Tubiana, the president of the human rights federation FIDH, stated:“A system which allows ID checks encourages discrimination.” 359In the UK, the 1997 report of the Scarman Centre concluded that there were difficultiesin ascertaining whether the research findings and higher rates of offending amongstsome ethnic minority groups are a result of disproportionate crime involvement or ofdisproportionate crime control directed at them. The study considers it likely that thetwo are linked, and that discrimination against minorities, particularly black minorities,interrelates with high rates of offending. Finally, the report suggested that:“even if a voluntary card was introduced (in the UK) with noadditional powers for police to check an individual’s identity,evidence from other EU countries would suggest that through aprocess of compulsion by stealth, officers may be increasinglysuspicious of those who did not have a card, and this in itself couldcause tension when performing a stop and search.”However, despite the fact that this finding is based on both qualitative and quantitativeresearch, it is one that, several years later, we are being asked to ignore.As Part of the Larger Legislative Landscape: SOCPAAside from the immigration and money laundering regulations that have createdopportunities for identification measures, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Actof 2005 also contains serious measures that must be noted. Together these laws showthat an ID card is part of a much larger collection of laws and policies put forward bythe Government to transform policing.Making all Offences Arrestable and SearchableThe power to stop and search requires reasonable grounds for suspecting that the searchwill find stolen goods or prohibited articles. Similarly for road checks, the police canstop a car if the vehicle is carrying someone who has committed, or is intending tocommit, an offence, is a prisoner or a witness. Traditionally, offences are divided intoarrestable and non-arrestable. Arrestable offences are those where the sentence is fixedby law, punishable by 5 years of imprisonment, or specified offences included indefinition by statute.The difference in law is that someone can be arrested by a constable if the officer hasreasonable grounds for suspecting that the individual is committing, or has committed,an arrestable offence; or anyone about whom he has reasonable grounds for suspicionthat they are guilty of an arrestable offence. For non-arrestable offences, a constablemay arrest anyone about whom he has reasonable grounds for suspicion if he issatisfied:- that the identity of the relevant person is not known, cannot be readilyascertained or is in doubt as to whether it is his real name;359 Ibid.