Home Office seminar attacked by Honeyford
01 January 1991
Home Office seminar attacked by Honeyford
artdoc May=1991
As the Criminal Justice Bill, which seeks to achieve greater sentencing
consistency by imposing new statutory guidelines on courts, is
published, a debate has begun via the letters page of the Independent
concerning other initiatives to combat racism in the criminal justice
system.
On 11.10.90 and 12.10.90 the Independent reported on new Home
Office initiatives to combat racism within the criminal justice system.
A report to the European Parliament had accused Britain of practising
institutionalised racism in the legal system and the Home Office had
planned a special seminar to consult with selected black organisations
and penal reform groups. In the event, the seminar had agreed a plan to
impose new duties on the legal system in the Criminal Justice Bill: a
clause imposing a duty on probation, police officers and judges not to
discriminate on the grounds of race, colour and creed; that arrests and
sentences should be monitored on ethnic lines; and that judges should be
given more detailed guidelines on how different sentences could
disproportionately affect different ethnic groups.
Then, on 16.10.90, a letter from Mr. Ray Honeyford appeared in the
Independent attacking the view that there is racism within the criminal
justice system. `The only "evidence" adduced is ethnic variations in
conviction rates and remands in custody', says Mr. Honeyford. `The
truth is that, in free societies, variations in outcomes are the norm'.
He goes on to attack the race relations industry that attempts to impose
equality from above and those who ignore the evidence that ethnic
minorities are `out-performing their white counterparts' in some areas.
Although `prejudice undoubtedly exists` in society as a whole `the
determining factor in a group's fortune is not prejudice, but the
group's own cultural values'.
Following Honeyford's letter, Adam Simpson, deputy director of the
Prison Reform Trust and Lionel Morrison of the CRE have written to the
Independent suggesting that Mr. Honeyford has downplayed the evidence of
racism in the criminal justice system and that the new Home Office
initiative, far from being attacked, should be welcomed. (Independent
18.10.90)
IRR Police-Media Bulletin, no 65. Institute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke
Street, London WC1X 9HS