The Met Police’s gang database is ‘ineffective’, ‘humiliating’ and racist
Not only is the Matrix completely ineffective at combating the crime it claims to want to tackle, our research suggests it makes crime more likely.

This war between the police and young Black people has being going on since the Windrush. This particular iteration of this war began after the execution of Mark Duggan… in a time of austerity, in a time of economic downturn the system always look at people to blame.They didn’t want to talk about austerity, so they talked about “the gangs”. They had four reviews – one was the police’s own review … there was no evidence that gangs orchestrated violence, but it didn’t stop the government.
Guilt by association
- If you’re on it.
- How you got onto it.
- What it takes to get off it.
Orwellian
To be on the Matrix is to be literally black listed. It means that the young people on it are marked out for harassment and humiliation. It’s a highly racialised stigma that follows someone through every aspect of their life.
‘Intelligence-led’
The thing what pisses me off is that they [police] have the power to do stuff, extra stuff, and their power derives from intelligence. You can ask them, ‘What’s the intelligence?’ They’ll say they’re not allowed to tell you. [I]t’s not proven in court. So why is it [intelligence] allowing you the powers to come to oppress me…[y]ou’re oppressing me with power that you shouldn’t even have.
Humiliated
describe initially having a positive attitude and helpful experience of the police.
They think they know me. They don’t know me…
They think they know you because they see things on paper and they think they can make a judgement… “No, you can’t search me. I am not going to bow down to you because you found out I have been in trouble with the police. I haven’t got any drugs.
these initial stop and search encounters serve as scars of the police humiliation they experienced as children and consequently severely impacted their trust and confidence in the police.
The young people we work with describe being stopped and searched as a daily occurrence, like putting on clothes – some people report being stopped and searched as many as three times a day. I think it’s hard for most people to imagine that level of invasion of personal space and the mental strain the young people experience.
Racialised

CREDIT: Amnesty International UK
Law professor Lee Bridges observed in 2015:
It is interesting to note how ethnicity is defined [by the MPS]. While four of the six categories are geographically based, with ‘whites’ being divided between Northern and Southern European origins, no such differentiation is made for either ‘black’ or ‘Asian’ people on the database, both being taken as blanket categories based purely on race or ethnicity.

But what is even more remarkable is that the Met could claim that there are only 439 white people in the whole of London who are engaged on an organised basis in ‘violence, criminal offending and gang membership’, which is the purported basis for inclusion on the database. Once account is taken of such organised criminal activities as drug-dealing; sex and people trafficking; multi-handed robbery: fraud: theft (including auto theft ) and extortion; football hooliganism; and racist violence, these figures are simply not credible.Excluded from society
While the report focuses largely on stop and searches, it also details people excluded from education, learning resources, and housing.One person interviewed wasn’t able to get “the accommodation that he had already signed the tenancy agreement on” despite being homeless. A ‘banning order’ meant he was banished from his community and couldn’t contact his friends.It’s no wonder that report author Dr Patrick Williams said the following during the launch:The hostile environment is not a new idea. Essentially, to be matrixed means to be placed in a deliberate hostile environment.Managing disorder rather than fighting crime
Sociologist Alex Vitale explains in his book The End of Policing that the creation of the MPS:had at its core not fighting crime, but managing disorder and protecting the propertied classes from the rabble. [The founder of the MPS Sir Robert] Peel developed his ideas while managing the British colonial occupation of Ireland and seeking new forms of social control that would allow for continued political and economic domination in the face of growing insurrections, riots, and political uprisings.If harassing people and containing Black and working-class populations remains the job of the police, then it is an objective that they successfully achieve. But for anyone concerned about tackling the root causes of crime, the findings and recommendations of this report must be considered seriously in order to shift state policy towards a more just situation.The Canary contacted the Met Police for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.Get Involved!– Learn more about the work of StopWatch and read their reports.– Write to your MP and tell them to push for the abolition of these types of gangs matrices.– Support independent journalism at The Canary.Featured image via Emily AppleImages in article via Mohamed Elmaazi, Amnesty International UK, Professor Lee Bridges