Kettling the Powers of the Police

Kettling the Powers of the Police is a new campaign, aiming to take on ‘the worst of the worst’ of police powers and practices.

The campaign is an initiative developed by the Network for Police Monitoring in collaboration with a range of other protest, community and legal groups. The campaign statement calls for an end to the abuse of police powers, the unrestrained use of surveillance and unending expansion of public order and protest laws.

http://networkforpolicemonitoring.org.uk/?page_id=415

Lawyers, frontline campaigning and community groups, bereaved families, deaths in custody campaigns and activist / protest groups are invited to sign up to and support this campaign.

http://networkforpolicemonitoring.org.uk/?page_id=392

All groups and individuals are also invited to feed into the campaigns objective to build a ‘dossier of evidence’ on policing issues. Many incidents are currently unreported and a dossier will bring to public attention the scale and range of the problems being faced.

The dossier will compile evidence in four key areas:

Public order policing – kettling, dispersal, pre-emptive arrests, use of force and the failure to facilitate protest.
Surveillance – police photography and filming, databases, facial recognition and gathering of intelligence.
Community harassment – stop and search, stop and account and other measures targeting specific communities or groups
Custody, bail and sentencing – abuse in custody, misuse of police bail / bail conditions and over-charging.

Please sign up to support this campaign, or to contribute your stories or experiences, e-mail info@networkforpolicemonitoring.org.uk