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Race dimension in criminal justice bill opposed

01 January 1991

Race dimension in criminal justice bill opposed
artdoc July=1991

The idea of introducing a non-discrimination clause into the
criminal justice bill has been met with opposition. The Labour
Party, penal reform groups and others believe that a statutory
prohibition on racial discrimination to apply to the criminal
justice system and to all decisions, whether by judges or
magistrates, court officials or probation officers, is
necessary.
But senior judges are opposed to the proposals on the
grounds that the insertion of the clause would be a tacit
admission that the courts had been discriminating in the past.
The government have also decided not to include anything
in the criminal justice bill about the monitoring of
discrimination. Home Office minister, John Patten, says that
ethnic monitoring would be difficult to implement, and that
police custody records already detailed the racial background
of defendants.
There has also been opposition to `electronic tagging'
which shadow Home Secretary Roy Hattersley has described as a
`gimmick'. A paper produced by the National Association for
the Care and Resettlement of Offenders says that of 50 people
tagged in a six-month Home Office trial, 28 broke their bail
conditions. The experiment cost ¼700,000 - an estimated cost
of ¼14,000 for every defendant successfully tagged. (Times
19.11.90, 6.12.90 and 7.12.90; Guardian 20.11.90,
5.12.90 and 7.12-90)

IRR Police-Media Bulletin no 66. Institute of Race Relations,
2-6 Leeke Street, London WC1X 9HS