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Criminal Justice
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On 4 August 2011, a young black man was shot dead by police officers in the north London area of Tottenham. The shooting of Mark Duggan,
as well as the way in which it was handled by
the Metropolitan Police and Independent Police Complaints Commission, triggered a series of riots that spread like wildfire across the cities of England. As with the disturbances in the northern English towns in 2001 and 2005, the underlying causes of the riots are likely to become the topic of heated debates for years to come. And as with the events of 2001 and 2005, these debates are unlikely to yield a consensus. One thing, however, is clear: the immediate response in Tottenham
to Mark Duggan’s death is the clearest possible indicator that the relationship between many black and minority ethnic (BME) communities and the criminal justice system is as fraught and agitated as ever.
The submissions to this volume were written before the riots took place, but they all demonstrate why the initial reaction of Tottenham residents to Mark Duggan’s death was so fierce. It has now been
12 years since the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry highlighted the differential treatment of BME groups in the criminal justice system. Twelve years of debate and government initiatives, however, have not been successful in narrowing the gap. Minority ethnic people remain over-surveilled and under- protected within all stages of our criminal justice system. In England and Wales, black people are stopped and searched at seven times the rate of white people, and Asian people at twice the rate; 30 per cent of all Black men living in Britain are on the DNA database, whereas 10 per cent of White men are; and though accounting for 2.2 per cent
of the British population, Black people make up 15 per cent of the prison population – beating even the United States in terms of disproportionality (EHRC, 2010a: 172). More alarming still, for every one African Caribbean male undergraduate at a Russell Group university, there are three African Caribbean males aged 18–24 in prison. Put differently, African Caribbean men comprise 7 per cent of 18–24 year old prisoners, but 0.1 per cent of Russell Group undergraduates
Kjartan Páll Sviensson - Personal Name
1st Edtion
978-1-906732-78-3
NONE
Criminal Justice
Law
English
Runnymede
2012
USA
1-48
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