Rioters, far right activists, as well as owner of X Elon Musk, have been propagating the idea of “two-tier policing”. This claim gets things backwards, is part of a communication strategy of reverse victimization by the far right.
blogs.lse.ac.uk
Myths and truths about “two-tier policing”
Like all the best conspiracy theories, the myth of a “two-tier” approach to policing public disorder is effective precisely because it contains a core vein of truth. If #BlackLivesMatter made one thing indelibly clear, it is that police officers
do treat citizens in highly unequal ways, especially when it comes to decisions about how and when to use violent force. As reflected in statistics about the use of
stop-and-search, police use of
weapons (such as tasers),
police sexual misconduct, and
deaths in police custody, the threat of police violence cuts along lines of race, class and gender that are disturbingly well defined. It is women, queer people, and racially minoritized groups who are disproportionately victimized by this violence. According to the 2019/2020 report by the
Independent Office for Police Conduct, for instance, 23 per cent of total deaths in or following police custody between 2015 and 2020 (i.e. 20 of 86 deaths) were people of BME background.
During the BLM uprisings, the myth that policing exists to neutrally enforce a set of laws for the even benefit of all citizens came under radical cultural pressure. Many citizens developed a new consciousness about
institutional racism in UK police forces and about how and why the criminal legal system operates as a tool of racial oppression. Of course, abolitionist scholars and organizers had been rejecting the equation of “more policing” with “more safety” for years. But the virality of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, and the hypervisibility of the aggressive
police response to those who protested in the U.S. and elsewhere, placed unprecedented public pressure on the legitimacy of police use of force against citizens—especially, protestors.
