“He has walled me in so I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains” –
Lamentations 3:7
The Rt Hon David Lammy, Member of Parliament for Tottenham in North London
and member of the Labour Party, has now published his report on the welfare of
Black, Asian and other minorities in the UK’s Criminal Justice System.
The main purpose of the Lammy Review is to “make recommendations for
improvement with the ultimate aim of reducing the proportion of BAME offenders
in the criminal justice system”.
The proportion in question is staggering. Black, Asian and other minorities make
up 14% of the total population of England and Wales, but constitute 25% of
prisoners. At present, BME youths make up 40% of those in custody.
Between 2006 and 2016, the number of BME youth’s offending for the first time
rose from 11% to 19%, as has the number of those reoffending. In the same
period, the number of BME youths in prison rose from 25% to 41%.
The names of 22 000 BME children have been added to the Police National
Database for serious crimes, but also for police reprimands. This already blights
the future of many young people as even if they later reform and become
responsible adults, securing a job – whether as cleaners or as accountants -proves difficult, for nearly 50% of employers will not employ anyone with a
criminal background. And when lawful jobs are out of reach, unlawful jobs
present alternative means of livelihood.
One of Mr Lammy’s proposed way of addressing this is to adopt a system used in
prisons in the US where offenders could apply for their criminal records to be
sealed from checks, after they have prove themselves rehabilitated.
Some of Mr Lammy reforms are simply reasonable, if not expected. They include
setting targets for more BME staff as decision makers – prison officers, governors,
magistrates and the judiciary – not in the far away future, but in the next five
years.
Mr Lammy’s other recommendations are a little more radical. Rather than try
young offenders in court, his proposal is for hearings to be heard in libraries and
community centres. This will treat young offenders less like criminals intent on
causing harm, and more like children who have lost their way and are in need of
guidance, as well as reprimands.
What, to some, might seem like a humane approach to reducing reoffending
rates, could seem all too forgiving to others.
Mr Lammy’s other reforms go beyond crime and primary offender, and aims to
indict adults higher up the criminal chain who coerce many young people into
drug trafficking and provide them with weapons.
To achieve this, he is proposing the adoption of the Modern Slavery Act which
states that a person commits an offence if the person “requires another person toperform forced or compulsory labour and the circumstances are such that the
person knows or ought to know that the other person is being required to perform
forced or compulsory labour”.
This could mean the arrest of more hardened criminals which could also give their
young targets a better chance at succeeding their environments, many of which
are already limited by low incomes or lone parentage, or both.
Mr Lammy’s research is not limited to the UK. He reveals similar racial disparities
in the six countries and 12 cities he visited, mainly here in the West, to
investigate how their own governments have tackled heavy bias in their criminal
systems.
In France, Muslims make up an estimated 8% of the population and between a
quarter and a half of the prison population.
In America, one in 35 African-American men are incarcerated, compared with one
in 214 White men.
In Canada, indigenous adults make up 3% of the population but 25% of the prison
population.
In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners make up 2% of the
population, but 27% of prisoners.
In New Zealand, Maoris make up 15% of the population, but more than 50% of the
prisonersWhat Mr Lammy has not done is to explicitly link these biases to the enduring
legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, white expansionism and colonial rule, or
what today is termed “institutionalised racism”.
The phrase “institutionalised racism” is linked in the public consciousness to the
MacPherson report on the death of Stephen Lawrence. It has since been used as a
byword for endemic racism, and is unfortunately losing some of its power due to
overuse in the public sphere, and like the phrase “affirmative action”, could not
possibly sustain its power against a way of life and thinking that has lasted for
centuries.
If this was Mr Lammy’s own intention, it is well-thought and presents his findings
and recommendations free from other publicly debated cases of racism.
Doing this would make stronger the tide against prison reforms because the many
educated, hard working and law abiding staff of the Crown Prosecution Service
surely do not see themselves and their decision-making as heavily influenced by
race. Not even prison wardens and others lower down the chain, i imagine, would
see themselves as mere functionaries of a racist ideology. To some, these might
just be jobs they go to in the morning and return from in the evening.
What heartens and surprises is that the Lammy report was commissioned by Prime
Minister David Cameron, and has been supported by his successor Prime Minister
Theresa May, both of whom are from a Conservative party that is traditionally
harder on crimes and immigration than the Labour Party which has a larger base
among Black and Asians.What must now be done is the implementation of Lammy’s recommendations, and
the presentation of truly satisfying reasons for why some could not be put into
practice.
Not yet another round of debates and nit-pickings as has proliferated on social
media and news programs, done with all the seriousness in the world, but with
little of its actions, for whether because of a lack of political will or insufficient
empathy, the lives of children, women and men are being wasted with every
passing day.