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UK: Tilt's prison race relations unit

01 May 1998

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The director-general of the Prison Service, Richard Tilt, announced his intention to lead a new prison race relations unit in May. The decision follows Tilt's remarks, on the unlawful killing verdict on black prisoner Alton Manning that black people were more likely to suffocate while under restraint than white people (see Statewatch Vol. 8, no. 2). The comments, which were almost universally derided as inflammatory racist nonsense, were also perceived as an attempt to divert attention from a spate of black deaths in prison custody resulting from illegal restraint techniques used by prison officers. The director-general said that the new unit would monitor racism in the service and be mainly staffed by representatives from the ethnic minorities. However, judging from previous initiatives carried out by the police and other state agencies the unit is likely to be little more than a talking shop made up of conservative community "leaders" who will be used to diffuse and deflect anger directed at an increasingly privatised - and unaccountable - prison service.

Times 8.5.98.

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