Mike Franklin

Former Commissioner with the Independent Police Complaints Commission, Mike Franklin was also HM Assistant Inspector of Constabulary and has acted as a Specialist Assistant Inspector, Race and Diversity across 43 police forces in England and Wales. Mike was Chair of the Community Police Consultative Group for Lambeth and also served on the TUC race relations committee. Mike is currently an Independent Member of the Ministry of Defence Police Committee(ProfessionalStandards Lead) and a Non Executive Director at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

 

Mike Franklin:
“I’d be in Brixton with my friends on a Saturday, none of us were criminals, we didn’t carry drugs, we didn’t carry guns, we didn’t carry knives, we had no criminal records, just young people out on the street going shopping, and we’d get searched on a regular basis. You’d guarantee that it would happen on a Saturday. I had friends that got stopped and searched, arrested, taken into the police station, came out the next day with physical injuries. So, you know, that’s the way it was. But stop and search, sus, was the 1824 Vagrancy Act. So it was a very, very old piece of legislation. It was designed in Victorian times to remove tramps, tramps from the street. And how that became a law that was said to be a crime fighting tool, but was generally used to harass and criminalise our community, that was one of the reasons why a lot of us stood against it.”