Stephen Lawrence ten years on Things are getting worse! (continued)

Socialist Resistance no6 | page 9

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Stephen co.uk ••• In the last ten years the number of black people in prison has almost doubled. ...... Labour delivered on these promises? The short answer is that things are getting much worse.

There was an early indication of this five months after the Inquiry when Detective Inspector Bullock - second in command of the original murder investigation - was cleared of 26 of the 28 elements of an internal disciplinary action. He was the only offi cer to face serious charges. Stephen's mother Doreen described the proceedings as "a whitewash".

One of the MacPherson Report's • main criticisms concerned the

racist stop and search tactics of the police. Black people are now 8 times the more likely to be stopped than white, a figure that is higher than in 1999. And the stops are on the increase. Last year 30 percent more black and 40 percent more Asian people were stopped than the previous year, itself an increase on the year before. For white people the increase has been only 8 percent..

New powers under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, allow a stop and search without any grounds of reasonable-