- More stopping, searching, jailing
- Representation
- Prison
- Race hate
- Stop and search
More stopping, searching, jailing
Home Office minister Lord Falconer: "The tragedy of the Lawrence story is not only the horror of Stephen Lawrence's brutal and senseless murder but also the failure of the criminal justice system-the police, the CPS, the courts-to deliver justice to Stephen and his family."
So how much has changed in the 10 years since Stephen's murder? Especially under New Labour's modernisers?
Representation
Commander Cressida Dick, in charge of the Met's diversity directorate: "It's very difficult to imagine a situation where we will say we are no longer institutionally racist."
One senior police officer told the Guardian: "We can feel the pressure [from the Home Office] is off."
Lord Ouseley, the former chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, agrees: "The momentum there four years ago isn't there now. It lasted until the last election. Race does not have the high priority it had."
The number of ethnic minority police officers grew slightly year-on-year to 2.6% of the force, but this is still less than half the proportion of ethnic minorities in Britain's population.
Government departments fare little better, with 4% of the staff of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, coming from ethnic minorities. The department did not disclose data for higher grades. At the Home Office just eight of the 410 staff in the highest grades are either Asian or Afro-Caribbean.
Stop and search
Afro-Caribbean people are more than 27 times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched under a special police power which allows stop and searches without an officer having reasonable grounds of suspicion. It is contained under section 60 of the Crime, Justice and Public Order Act 1994. In London, its usage more than doubled between 2000/1 to 2001/2 to 6,000 cases. The Metropolitan Police stopped more Asian people than white people, despite there being fewer of them in the population, and nearly as many Afro-Caribbean people as white people. West Midlands police used the power 5,520 times, almost as many as the Met, despite policing a smaller population.
With search powers governed by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace), police need to have reasonable suspicion. Afro-Caribbean people are eight times more likely to be stopped under Pace.
Stop and searches of Asian and black people in 2001-2 went up by 16% and 6% respectively compared with 2000-1, while those of white people fell by 2%. In London, the Metropolitan police stopped 40% more Asians and 30% more black people, but 8% fewer white.
Prison
One in every 100 black British adults is now in prison, according to the latest Home Office figures. A recent crackdown on guns, drugs and street crime has led to an explosion in the number of prisoners from an Afro-Caribbean background, who now account for one in six of all inmates.
The number of black prisoners in Britain's jails has risen 54% from 7,585 to 11,710 since Labour came to power. At 16% of all those in jail, the number of black prisoners is hugely disproportionate to the general population, where African and Caribbean people make up just 2% of the total.
Last year's rise coincides with a street crime initiative launched by Home Secretary David Blunkett, which focused on the 10 police areas that accounted for more than 80% of street crime. The government claimed the initiative led to a 16% drop in offences in the target areas-but it also led to a 10% rise in the number of people remanded in custody.
The shift in focus from domestic burglary to street crime has combined with targeted gun and drug crime policies to alter the ethnic balance of convictions. Traditionally, white males carry out a far higher proportion of burglaries, whereas police often believe street crime to be the preserve of young black men. Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "There is a growing perception that street crime is a black people's crime, when it may simply be that they are more visible to the police and the courts. The courts are picking up on low-level antisocial behaviour on the streets because young black men have nowhere else to go either because they are poor or because it's part of the culture to be on the streets."
The Prison Service has been sitting on a report from the Commission for Racial Equality on racism in prisons since last December and is yet to announce a date for its publication. The report is thought to uncover systematic prejudice in the system, where black prisoners from inner-city areas are often moved to parts of the country where there are no black prison officers. The prison service put an Asian teenager in a cell with a known racist who wrote letters fantasising about committing a racist murder. The mistake cost Zahid Mubarek his life.
Race hate
Year-on-year, recorded race hate crimes rose by two per cent, to 54,351 in 2001-2. Police forces in Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, West Midlands and North Wales have seen figures double in two years. Nearly 9,000 people were cautioned or prosecuted for racially aggravated offences, double the amount the year before.
West Mercia police botched their investigation into the deaths of two black men, from the same family, found hanged. One of them, Errol McGowan, begged officers in Telford, Shropshire, for protection from a racist gang that was threatening his life, and was ignored.