News

New research: link between online hate speech with real-world hate crime

The latest post on the Oxford University Press blog examines the link between online hate speech and hate crime as it happens in the real world. 

Researcher and blog post author, Professor Matthew Williams, has been conducting research in this area. His findings suggest that anti-Black and anti-Muslim hate speech online is linked to heightened racial and religious violence and harassment.

The post is a summary of an article by...

14 October 2019
Comment

20 years after Macpherson - what has changed?

The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, chaired by Sir William Macpherson, has gone down in British social and political history as a watershed moment in British race relations.

8 May 2019
News

Imran Khan on racism in the Metropolitan Police

Imran Khan, the Lawrence family solicitor, has written an article in response to the BBC's three-part documentary on Stephen Lawrence's murder, 'Stephen: The Murder That Changed a Nation'.

In The Guardian article, Khan questions whether anything has changed within the Metropolitan Police since Stephen Lawrence's murder in 1993 and emphasises how much work is to be done to shape a racially just society and police force. 

In 2015, along with Monitoring Group, Imran...

19 April 2018
Comment

Racial bias and the problem of policing

A Prime Minister keen to show a commitment to tackling racism in the criminal justice system, while minimising the risk of having to deal with politically toxic findings, might well set up a...

22 September 2017
News

Criminal justice agencies must 'explain or reform'

Our Director, Richard Garside, is one of 22 signatories to a letter in today's Guardian newspaper calling on criminal justice agencies to reform if they cannot explain racial disparities.

One of our trustees – Patrick Williams of Manchester Metropolitan University – is also among the signatories.

It will take 'more than simple policy change', the letter states, 'to tackle the racial discrimination that defines – and shames – our criminal justice system'. The letter calls...

12 September 2017
News

Comment on Lammy review on race and criminal justice

The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies welcomes the publication of David Lammy's review into the treatment of and outcomes for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) individuals in the Criminal Justice System.

But it regrets that David Lammy's terms of reference were drawn so tightly that he was not asked to review why BAME people are disproportionately targeted by the police.

The review notes that BAME people are more likely to be arrested than white people. As a consequence, the 'caseload...

8 September 2017