OVERCOMING THE BATTLE OF RACISM
Racism in Britain Article - A Report from the Institute of Race Relations "In effect there are two racisms in Britain today...the racism that discriminates and the racism that kills. The solution to the one is no solution to the other." Dr. A. Sivanandan, IRR Director, 1993 Introduction The fact that the Macpherson Report put the concept of institutional racism on the national agenda was, indeed, a watershed. It brought to the fore the impact of inadvertent racism and the need for a whole institution to tackle its particular form of indirect racism. It plays a critical role in showing that racism is neither confined to an individual act nor reducible to a racist intent. Collective behaviour can result in unwitting racism. Meeting the external challenge The next challenge to a voluntary sector organisation is to examine how the racist culture of the wider society affects that organisation. How does the work of a particular organisation influence the wider racism, or how is it influenced by the wider issues of, for example, racist media portrayal of BME communities and asylum-seekers, by changes to legislation which particularly impact upon BMEs, by the incidence and severity of racial harassment? We believe that it is through developing this outward focus to tackling institutional racism, that practice can move beyond the parameters set out in the 1976 Race Relations Act. Facing up to racial violence We intend to focus on one crucial aspect of that social barrier - racial violence. Since 1999 when Macpherson reported, racial violence has massively increased. In the years from 1994-8 reported racist incidents in the Metropolitan police area were around 5,000 year-on-year. But in the year 1998/99 the number of reported incidents rose to 11,050 (an increase of 89%) and in the year 1999/00 the figure has more than doubled again to 23,346 (an increase of 111%). Of course there may be, as the police contend, more confidence felt by BME communities in the police and therefore a greater reporting of attacks and there is certainly a greater willingness in the police to record reported attacks. In fact, as we show below, the police may be recording as racial incidents what are, in effect, inter-racial crimes. But, given all these caveats when interpreting the data on racial incidents, there is, undoubtedly, an increase in very serious attacks - often ending in permanent disability or death. Since February 1999 when Macpherson reported we have recorded 19 deaths involving a racial motivation in England and Wales, of which 9 took place in the London area. Ironically, although the Stephen Lawrence case which prompted the Macpherson Inquiry was initially one of overt racial violence, most of the interest in racism since the Macpherson Report has been directed towards covert or indirect racism. Most organisations are concentrating solely on Macpherson's definition of institutional racism ignoring other key aspects of his report which related to tackling overtly violent racism. Macpherson and racial violence Thirty-four of the seventy recommendations in the Macpherson Report related to racist incidents. They included: (i) the development of performance indicators by the Metropolitan Police Service in relation to preventing, recording, investigating and prosecuting racist incidents; ( ii) a redefinition of a racist incident as 'any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person'; (iii) the development of a Good Practice Guide for Police Response to Racial Incidents; (iv) a review by MPS of procedures for recording information on incidents; (v) the need for Family Liaison Officers to treat families professionally with respect and according to their needs - with the provision to a victim's family of all possible information about the crime and its investigation; (vi) the police services and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to take particular care at all stages of prosecution to recognise and include reference to any evidence of racist motivation; (vii) that the CPS ensure that a victim or victim's family be consulted and kept informed as to any proposal to discontinue proceedings. Case studies What the Stephen Lawrence case demonstrated was a lack of a convincing and thorough investigation by the police of the crime. It showed that some police officers were still viewing all black people, even victims of crime, as potential suspects. It suggested that a racial murder was not being treated with sufficient seriousness by the police. Steps were not taken to collect forensic evidence soon enough. Witness statements were not followed up. Suspects were not called in for questioning early enough. And liaison with the Lawrence family broke down. The family felt excluded from the process and disadvantage by not having access to information. Finally they felt let down because there was no prosecution of their son's killers. And there was, until the Macpherson Inquiry, no acknowledgement by the police that they had indeed collectively bungled the inquiry and owed an apology to the family. But without the support of key community workers and a voluble community campaign the Stephen Lawrence case would possibly never have grown into the cause célèbre. We examine here the experience of eight victims' families to see what has changed for them since Macpherson. Though some of the racial incidents analysed here have taken place before February 1999, we are examining the investigations, prosecution and follow-up after Macpherson's Report. Case One: Ricky Reel - Kingston-upon-Thames On the night of 14 October 1997 Lakhvinder (Ricky) Reel and his three friends were racially abused and attacked in Kingston-upon-Thames. Fearing for their lives, the Asian youths fled. Ricky got separated from the group. He never returned home. And as the hours and days passed, his family grew more and more frantic. They begged the police to investigate his disappearance. The police were reluctant. They suggested that he had merely gone to stay with friends - a secret girlfriend perhaps? Mrs Reel, other family members and friends began to search for signs of Ricky - handing out leaflets in the town asking for information, locating CCTV footage of the area where the racial incident had taken place. Seven days after the incident, Ricky's body was found in the Thames just half a mile away. Because the flies of his trousers were undone, the police concluded that he had slipped as he urinated into the river. No further investigation was required, they said. An independent post-mortem, however, found bruising to Ricky's back. The family, who felt that this and the fact that his new shirt had been ripped, suggested foul play, were angry that the police had not gone further with their investigations. They did not follow up an anonymous letter which named some youths as killers, they did not allow a televised reconstruction to take place. The family instigated a complaint against the police which was investigated by the Surrey constabulary. The report was completed in 1998 but kept secret. After external pressure the report was shown to the family and their solicitor on condition that it was not made public. It criticised officers for not logging the racially motivated attack and for not filling out a missing person log immediately. It apologised for 'weaknesses and flaws' in the investigation and 30 officers were found guilty of neglect of duty. Jack Straw agreed to meet Mrs Reel to discuss whether the report could be shown to other members of her family, only after her constituency MP had threatened to invoke parliamentary privilege to make the PCA report public. Paul Condon, Met Chief, decided that it should not be published. In late 1998 the investigation of Ricky's death was taken over by the Racial Violent Crimes Task Force (RVCTF). The family again had expectations about a result. But in November 1999 at the inquest into his death the RVCTF announced that they, too, believed his death to be an accident. The fact that the jury returned an open verdict suggests that the police view was not entirely convincing and doubts remained about the possibility of a racial attack. Observations: a. victims still treated with suspicion. b. racial incident not logged c. racial motivation for death not initially investigated d. critical report from PCA withheld without sufficient reason e. handing over of case to RVCTF suggests lack of will or capacity to investigate racial incident in local force f. open verdict at inquest shows police version of events was not entirely credible g. no arrests, no convictions h. family continues with its campaign for justice Case Two: Michael Menson - Enfield On 28 January 1997 a young black musician was set alight by four youths in a north London phone box. Although Michael told officers at the scene that he had been racially abused and then doused in petrol and set alight, they decided he was responsible for his own injuries, which they did not regard as life-threatening. As a result, in the crucial hours after the attack, the police did not treat the area as a crime scene. Police declined to interview Michael when he remained conscious in a burns unit. He gave details to his brother but the police failed to take a statement before he died. The family of Michael took on the struggle to get the crime investigated as a racial murder and the culprits brought to justice. The day before the inquest opened in September 1998 the Met's Deputy Commissioner wrote to the Menson family admitting mistakes: 'police action at the scene and for the first 12 hours was not as thorough as I would have wished …assumptions were made by the officers who initially attended the scene. As a consequence the scene was not forensically preserved.' After an inquest verdict of unlawful killing the Home Secretary met the family and a new team of investigators led by the RVCTF appointed. This signalled that after two years of campaigning by the family the police conceded that the death was a result of a racist incident. In March 1999, fifty-one days later, officers arrested three men (a fourth was tried in northern Cyprus) for the involvement in Michael's murder. In December 1999 one man was found guilty of murder and another of manslaughter. The family of Michael Menson lodged a formal complaint in to the original investigation into Michael's death and the Cambridge police were asked to investigate. In May 2000 eleven officers, including a detective chief inspector, were removed from operational duties. Observations a. victim treated with suspicion b. racial incident not logged c. forensic evidence not collected d. refusal to accept racial dimension to case e. handing over case to RVCTF suggests lack of ability to investigate racial incident by local force f. needed jury verdict, campaign of family and intervention of Home Secretary to reopen the investigation as a racial incident g. convictions for crime took place almost three years after incident Case Three: Nail bombings - Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Westminster In April 1999 over 60 people were injured in bomb attacks in Brixton and Brick Lane. A third bomb killed three white people in the Admiral Duncan pub, a gay bar in Soho. The investigation into these outrages was, understandably, on a scale quite unlike other racial incidents and the perpetrator, 22-year-old David Copeland was arrested and charged on the day of the last bombing. He was sentenced in June 2000 to six life sentences. Observations a. The police systematically played down the perpetrator's links to far-Right/Nazi parties, prefer-ring instead to emphasise the lone, isolated nature of the crime. b. Special Branch, MI5 and the anti-terrorist squad were unable to identify Copeland after he was located on CCTV. His name was supplied by an independent anti-fascist organisation. This suggests a lack of intelligence about the far-Right fringe in the UK within security forces. Case Four: Uppadathil Divakaran - Westminster On 21 May 2000 an Asian shopkeeper of City Bargain Bookshop in Queensway pursued three youngsters who had stolen a football worth £4.95 from his shop. He caught up with the youngest of the gang who held the ball and asked for it back. The gang turned on him, punching him in the face, through his glasses. As they beat him, Divakaran fell, hitting his head on the pavement. The gang continued to kick him as he lay there unconscious. No one intervened. Ultimately, someone called the police and he was taken to hospital where he died two days later after surgeons tried in vain to remove a clot from his brain. The police investigated this as a racist killing. Since the death there have been other attacks on the shop, threats to his partner and racist abuse. Originally four young people were charged with murder but the charges were reduced to manslaughter and affray. Observations a. investigated initially by police as a racist attack but the racial dimension does not appear to have been included by the CPS. b. Issues are raised in this case and a similar murder of a Kurdish shopkeeper which took place in Holloway following the theft of a phone card, as to the racist extent of the incident. Such incidents appear to be racist and are accompanied by racial abuse. However, the incidents begin as petty thefts and they escalate because extreme violence is used. However it appears that shops run by members of BME groups are being targeted for thefts and conduct towards the personnel in the shops reflects particular hatred. c. Convictions were secured - though not for the murder charge Summary The anti-racist agenda since Macpherson reported has concentrated on how organisations can tackle their internal indirect racism. This research asks how the external 'social barrier' of racial violence has been tackled since Macpherson's Report. Examining, from the point of view of victims' families, the ways in which public bodies, including the police, have dealt since February 1999 with certain serious racial incidents which took place in London, it suggests that understanding the impact of racial violence on Black and Ethnic Minority (BME) communities should become part of every voluntary organisations' policy and programme for tackling institutional racism. An awareness of specially vulnerable groups has to be developed, community safety has to be integrated into service delivery, methods of supporting victims have to be found which go beyond legal referral and campaigning should, wherever possible, complement the provision of direct services. Voluntary organisations do not operate in a racial vacuum. They have to raise their awareness of both national developments in race policy and the local climate in which they work. Funders, too, need to become aware of the role campaigning can play as a service to victims and a way of changing the local climate and challenging the national agenda. Courtesy of IRR (Institute of Race Relations) |
