Racism in the UK: The Stephen Lawrence Case

 Over the past couple of weeks, as I’m sure you’ve seen, the Black Lives Matter movement has gained a lot of momentum and sparked a lot of conversations that needed to happen. I’ve seen a lot of people challenging the movement here in the UK with statements like “why are people protesting against something that happened in America” or “is it really worth falling out with people over American police brutality”. As a Criminology graduate, a lot of my degree analysed, in-depth, the issues of racism here in the UK and I think that it is important that I share this knowledge and speak up. However, I do think that I shouldn’t have had to get an undergraduate degree in order to gain this knowledge. These kind of issues should be taught at GCSE level and above. I’ve linked some petitions at the end to sign that push for an updated curriculum here in the UK.   

 

Stephen Lawrence and The Macpherson Report

 

One of the most important moments in British criminal justice history was the publication of the Macpherson Report in 1999 – only 20 years ago – which means for a lot of my friends and family reading this, that we are older than this document. On the 22^nd April 1993, 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence was murdered by a group of white young people at a bus stop in South-East London. Following this, five suspects were arrested, however, none of them were tried for the crime and three of them were acquitted. During this time, the legal principal of Double Jeopardy was still enforced, which means that people could not be tried a second time for the same crime. This meant that Stephen’s killers could not face further prosecution for the murder until 20 years later after this doctrine was revised in 2005.

 

In 1997, the new Labour Home Secretary, Jack Straw, met with Stephen Lawrence’s parents (his predecessor at the time of Stephen’s murder refused to) and announced a judicial enquiry into the handling of the Stephen Lawrence case, to be overseen by high court judge Sir William Macpherson. The Macpherson Report exposed how the investigation into Stephen’s murder was fundamentally flawed, as officers failed to recognised the murder as a racially motivated hate crime. The report then set out proposals to make police relations with ethnic minority groups in the UK fairer including, reform of the 1976 Race Relations Act, tougher police disciplinary regimes and revision of stop and search.

 

Here are some examples of what could indicate whether racism has been eradicated from the police force.

  

Racial Violence ·      In England and Wales, racist incidents doubled in 1999/2000

Recruitment Issues ·      Government targets following the Macpherson Report essentially created positive discrimination

Discipline ·      2008 new Standards of Professional Behaviour introduced

Diversity Training ·      The 2000 Race Relations Act required forces to have community and race workshops for officers

Stop and Search Account ·      Disproportionality regarding the use of stop and searches was to be monitored by the Police Performative Assessment Framework

 

 

Arguably, the most important development from this report was the definition re-categorisation of racism. He identified institutional racism as: discriminative processes, attitudes and behaviour (i.e. unwitting prejudice, thoughtlessness, ignorance and racial stereotyping) that is perpetuated in British public institutions that unintentionally disadvantage minority ethnic people. This means that racism can be carried out by any institution, not just the police, most of the time unknowingly by the individuals that work there who are just doing their job – which is determined by the processes and practices embedded in the institutional environment.

 

However, studies, reports, and media outlets have shown that since Macpherson’s recommendations, institutional racism is still alive and well. Progress in responding to the reforms suggested by Macpherson has been hindered by a number of factors. For example, criticism of Macpherson’s claim of collective failure is based on a handful of officers during the Stephen Lawrence case and opposition claims that Macpherson is not specific enough on the roots of institutional racism.

 

So where does this leave us now?

 

The Macpherson report was pivotal in challenging racism in British public institutions and undeniably brought the issues of institutional racism to the forefront of political and public consciousness. But people of colour are still be treated as second-class citizens here in the UK.

 

London’s population consists of 12% black people and 59% white people, yet black people are still stopped and searched more often.

 

The 2017 Lammy Review showed that racial bias is still reflected in our criminal justice system, particularly the youth justice system.

 

Black people make up 3% of the overall population for England and Wales, yet they make up 12% of our prison population.

 

Black and ethnic minorities in the UK are more likely to die of Coronavirus.

 

This shows that we still have a long way to go in tackling racism in the UK. People in positions of power need to recognise and accept the magnitude of work that still needs to be done and need to rise to the challenge of making change happen.

 

If you can’t attend peaceful protests or can’t donate to the movement, there are still petitions you can sign, books to read, documentaries to watch and so on. I’ll link some below.

 

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/324092

 

https://www.change.org/p/suspend-uk-export-of-tear-gas-rubber-bullets-and-riot-shields-to-usa?signed=true

 

https://www.change.org/p/department-of-education-battle-racism-by-updating-reading-lists-at-gcse

 

Here are the resources I used for this post:

 

https://www.stephenlawrence.org.uk/

 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1468-2311.00165?casa_token=VAr-76USqBQAAAAA:5-NbpJxU8qJ-Z98RQtkhMa3XT8coYxlKPF_K5-onNA6Oz53xjIFvQcrD6zPpVb2OEimf62fBsF6r

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/19/stephen-lawrence-timeline-of-key-events

 

http://www.irr.org.uk/

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/09/neville-lawrence-black-people-still-second-class-citizens-in-britain

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/643001/lammy-review-final-report.pdf