Summary
On 22 April 1993, Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death at a bus stop in South London in an unprovoked racist attack. The police were heavily criticised for their conduct of the investigation and no one has ever been convicted for the crime.
'The Macpherson Report - Ten Years On' (HC 427) finds that, since the 1999 judicial inquiry into the police investigation of Stephen's murder, the police have made tremendous strides in the service they provide to ethnic minority communities and in countering racism amongst its own workforce.
The inquiry, led by Sir William Macpherson, found that the police investigation into Stephen's murder was "marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers."
Of the 70 recommendations set out in The Macpherson Report (Cm. 4262-I), 67 have been implemented fully or in part in the ten years since his report was published.
However, a number of concerns remain. Black communities in particular are disproportionately represented in stop and search statistics and on the National DNA Database and, in fact, the gap has increased since 1999.
The Committee says the complex factors behind the over-representation of black people in the criminal justice system do not justify this level of disproportionality.
The Committee also expresses its disappointment that the police service will not meet its target to employ 7% of officers from ethnic minority communities nationally by 2009 and that black and minority ethnic officers continue to experience difficulties in achieving promotion, as well as being more likely to be subject to disciplinary procedures.
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