Let's get it right: race and justice 2000 - Nacro

RACE AND JUSTICE 2000CHAPTER 1 A DECADE OF PROGRESS?‘It is therefore a matter of the gravest concern ifmembers of the ethnic minorities feel they arediscriminated against by the criminal justicesystem; more so if their fears were to be borne outin reality.’The black community is far from the point of havingconfidence in the fairness of the justice system. There isthe perceived unfairness in the treatment of young blackmen on the street – disproportionately represented amongthose stopped and searched by the police; criticisms of theway the system deals with black victims of crime; and itis still hard for black people to make successful careers inthe criminal justice agencies – especially at senior levels.According to a 1997 report from Helsinki Human RightsWatch, the United Kingdom has one of the highest levelsof recorded racial attacks in the whole of Europe. But aslong as 40 years ago, when sentencing nine young menconvicted for assaulting black people in Notting Hill,Lord Justice Salmon said:‘You are a minute and insignificant section of thepopulation who have brought shame on the districtin which you live and have filled the whole nationwith horror, indignation and disgust. Everyoneirrespective of the colour of their skin is entitledto walk through our streets with their heads erectand free from fear. This is a right which thesecourts will unfailingly uphold.’In June 1997, 19% of the prison population came fromminority groups – up 2% on the previous year – comparedto 5.8% of the general population. Little has changed heresince 1986 when 16% of men and 22% of women inprison were from minority groups. Home Office figurespublished in 1998 showed that black people were, onaverage, five times more likely to be stopped andsearched by the police than white people.There are still no black chief constables or chief probationofficers. There is one minority prison governing governor,only five minority Crown Court judges out of 561, noblack justices’ chief executives. There are seriousconcerns about black deaths in police custody - of the 260deaths in police custody between 1990 and 1996, whereethnicity was recorded, 7% were black detainees, 3%were Asian and 3% were of another ethnic origin. Themost recent figures show that eight (12%) of the 69people who died in police custody between April 1997and March 1998 were black (three deaths), Asian (fourdeaths) or from another minority ethnic group (one death).In 1996 and 1997, 15 people from minority groups died inprison.There has been a series of deaths among those seekingasylum in the UK. In 1987, Ahmed Katangole died inPentonville prison; in 1989 Siholyig ven and in 1991Kumpua Nsimba both died in Harmondsworth detentioncentre. In 1991, Omasse Lumumba died in Pentonvillewhile being restrained by officers in a strip cell.Two years later Joy Gardner died while being restrainedby police and immigration officers who were trying todeport her. These high profile cases further damage theperception of justice. More recently, the Immigration andAsylum Bill, currently in Parliament, and the ceaselessmedia references to ‘bogus asylum seekers’ send a generalmessage that ‘outsiders’ are not wanted.Britain is a modern European state with a rich and diversepopulation. Half of the minority population was born inthis country and three-quarters are British nationals. Outof Britain’s 56 million population, just one million peopleare black, 1,700,000 are Asian and another 500,000 comefrom other racial minority communities. Despite thesesmall numbers and the length of time that minoritycommunities have been settled here, a European Unionpoll to mark the end of the 1997 European Year AgainstRacism found that 8% of Britons classed themselves asvery racist and a further 24% as quite racist. The surveyinvolved 16,000 people in the 15 member states in 1997.In June 1997, the Office for National Statistics (ONS)reported that almost one child in Britain in every 10 isblack or Asian.What is the future for those children? In 1994, the DfEEreported that African Caribbean boys, who accounted for2% of the school population, accounted for 8% of thoseexcluded from school. Despite this, 51% of AfricanCaribbeans stay on in full-time education after 16, as do67% of Asian young people, compared to only 35% ofwhite youngsters.For those who leave full-time education, prospects arebleak. The 1994 Labour Force Survey reported that 51%of young black men aged between 16 and 24 wereunemployed compared to 18% of young white men. InLondon that year, 62% - six out of every 10 – youngblack men were out of work. And according to thehousing charity Centrepoint, about half of the homeless5