By Patrick Williams

The key to overcoming institutionalised racism in work with black, Asian and minority ethnic people in contact with the criminal justice system

Why read this evidence review?

This evidence review provides an in-depth look at growing rates of racial disparity in our criminal justice system and highlights key principles for effective interventions with people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds in contact with the system.

Patrick Williams, Senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, reviews the current evidence-base - to which he is an important contributor - and covers a number of key issues:

• Racial disparity within the criminal justice system

• The multidimensionality of social inequalities experienced by minority groups

• The lack of a clear strategy and officially approved programs to tackle racial disparity in the criminal justice system

• The criminal justice system’s preoccupation with risk as opposed to need

• Principles to govern minority ethnic interventions

• The importance of acknowledging racialisation and racism(s)

• Community empowerment models

• The argument for paying participants to engage

• The importance of the voluntary sector.

An online evidence base for the voluntary sector working in the criminal justice system

This article forms part of a series from Clinks, created to develop a far-reaching and accessible evidence base covering the most common types of activity undertaken within the criminal justice system. There are two main aims of this online series:

1. To increase the extent to which the voluntary sector bases its services on the available evidence base

2. To encourage commissioners to award contracts to organisations delivering an evidence-based approach.

London: Clinks, 2023. 11p.

By Vidisha Bajaj

Amidst high-profile incidents of hate violence against religious and caste minorities, the Indian Supreme Court laid down a series of guidelines to address mob violence and lynching in its July 2018 Tehseen Poonawalla order. The order mandated a police supervisory structure and stronger official accountability, more stringent penal provisions, victim and witness protection, and more expansive compensation and rehabilitation schemes. It also recommended the enactment of anti-lynching legislation. This article contributes to the conversation about the order’s implementation by drawing from the empirical work conducted by Jindal Global Law School’s (JGLS) legal clinic on hate crimes. It focuses on how the police deploy their official discretion in investigating and prosecuting incidents of mob violence and lynching. First, based on detailed interviews of police officials, the article shows how the ambiguity of the category of lynching continues to plague the implementation of the order. Second, taking a case study of a potential hate crime investigation, it shows how the police structures investigations and charges to undermine the goals of criminal law. This article shows that police officials use their discretion to construct lynching — during various stages of investigation and charging — to obscure and invisibilise the crime. This quotidian exercise of discretion is shaped by broader systemic problems in India’s criminal justice system, especially its lack of independence, inadequate training, and institutional bias. The article advocates that these systemic concerns must be integrated in a meaningful response to mob lynching and hate crimes in India.

India, Jindal Global Law Review. 2020, 34pg