Listen to our director debating race and criminal justice

Richard, our Director, yesterday debated David Lammy's review of racial bias in the criminal justice system with former Deputy Mayor for London, Munira Mirza.

The debate forms part of this week's podcast from The Spectator magazine.

Richard pointed out that Lammy's terms of reference prevented him from examining police activity in any detail, despite the fact that most of the biases and disproportionalities in the system begin with policing.

He also highlighted some of the main problems in the current justice system:

• Black people are more than four times as likely as white people to be stopped and searched by the police
• They are three times more likely to be arrested
• They are three times more likely to be prosecuted
• They are more likely to go to prison and their prison sentences are typically longer

These were facts that required explanation, he argued.

Challenging Munira Mirza, who accepted that black people were not more likely to be criminals than white people, Richard said the question was why black people were far more likely to be arrested by the police than white people.