Liverpool-Live

“Using contemporaneous interviews and documents, first published in Law, Order and the Authoritarian State and revisited in Power Conflict and Criminalisation, his talk reflected on the context, circumstances and impact of – and resistance to - institutionalised racism within the police.”

The event was held at Liverpool’s Casa building on Hope Street city centre, it was a great looking venue. There are two parts to it, the back were the talk was bring held and the front which was the pub area. Although spillage between the two areas was significant it did not detract from the seriousness of the event. The talk was not all one sided and did not put the police as an organisation themselves in to a bad light, it explained that there were individuals behind the goings on of 1981 that directly affected and contributed to those officers who took it upon themselves to behave the way they did and cause so much pain and destruction.

One of the things which really interested me, was that I was the youngest person there and that this event did not appeal to other people of my generation, like the quote goes, “how can we know where were going if we don’t know where we’ve been?”  Prof Scraton made it clear that the uprising of the people against the police was successful, and because of this there are not many records of their achievements, only word of mouth and unfortunately as young people have become more involved and pre occupied with the world of social media, they seem disinterested in the past along with the stories of 1981 which seem to have been lost.