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• Investigated or Ignored: an analysis of race-related deaths since the Macpherson Report, Harmit Athwal and Jon Burnett, Institute of Race Relations, February 2014, pp. 17

Investigated or Ignored: an analysis of race-related deaths since the Macpherson Report, Harmit Athwal and Jon Burnett, Institute of Race Relations, February 2014, pp. 17

01 February 2014

The Macpherson report, which published the outcome of an official inquiry into the racist murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, was published in 1999, finding that the Metropolitan police force was “marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers”.

Macpherson’s widely quoted conclusion initiated a plethora of changes in the way the police and criminal justice system responded to racist violence, including the introduction of ‘racially aggravated’ offences under the Crime and Disorder Act. The implementation of most of Macpherson’s 70 recommendations was spun into an official narrative that suggested that racist violence was no longer a “problem” or an “overlooked crime” and that “inequalities had been addressed.”

This important investigation by the IRR finds that since the Macpherson report’s publication there have been at least 93 deaths with a racist element - 97% of the victims were from Black and Ethnic Minority (BME) communities.

In 84% of cases there was a conviction of some kind, although not necessarily for murder or manslaughter, but in only one quarter of them was the allegation of racism prosecuted as such and the racially motivated element factored into sentencing.

As the authors’ point out: “Ironically, ‘race’ marks individuals out when they are the alleged perpetrator of a crime, but race and racism are elided by institutions when such individuals are victims of crime.”

Racial motivation is frequently downplayed by criminal justice agencies which use an over-legalistic definition of the term which inhibits the charging of perpetrators, leaving friends and relatives of the deceased to challenge decisions by the police and criminal justice system.

In conclusion, the report finds that on the one hand “those working in the criminal justice system do not have a deep understanding of how racism shapes the lives of those in poor BME communities.” On the other, they have a particular view of violent crimes (and motivation) which runs counter to the lived reality of racist attacks.”

In relation to the police: “racial abuse and harassment is still being downplayed and disregarded in some forces which appear at times to have little understanding of the context within which it takes place or how it can escalate into a deadly attack.”

Some of the racist murders considered in this report cannot be understood “without seeing the way in which police apathy has enabled ongoing harassment to continue, with victims becoming increasingly desperate.”

Available as a free download here (pdf).