Following on from our successful community launch event at Amnesty International last month, we have organised a parliamentary event to discuss StopWatch’s ‘Being Matrixed’ report. StopWatch is a committed conduit between policy-makers, youth practitioners, lawyers and those communities directly impacted by stop and search.
To assist in the fight against gangs and violent crime in 2011, the Metropolitan Police developed the London Gangs Matrix. Designed to measure gang membership and violence, the Gangs Matrix is a database containing the names and personal information of people classified as ‘gang nominals’. To uncover the implications of being on the Matrix and its connections with stop and search StopWatch commissioned Dr Patrick Williams, senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, to conduct qualitative research interviews with individuals effected by the Metropolitan Police's Gang database.
Highlighting the traumatic experiences of stop and search encounters and unintended negative consequences of gang management strategies, our innovative report provides a highly under-explored perspective. It begins to address the scarcity of existing qualitative data within this area, whilst attempting to understand the experiences of mainly young black and brown men registered to police databases as gang suspects in London.
The event will be chaired by Katrina Ffrench, StopWatch’s CEO.
Panellists include:
- Dr Patrick Williams – Author of the ‘Being Matrixed’ Report and Senior Lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan University
- Stafford Scott – Head of Advocacy, The Monitoring Group
- Jude Lanchin – Associate, Bindmans Solicitors
- Temi Mwale - Director, 4Front Project
- Ollie Sprague - Researcher, Amnesty International UK
Spoken work performances to be confirmed.
Date and time
Tue, 16 October 2018
18:00 – 20:00 BST
Location
Portcullis House
Thatcher Room
1 Parliament Street
London
SW1A 2JR