The Black Londoners Forum take a stand on the Criminal Justice Bill:

"People from ethnic minority communities are disproportionately over-represented at all stages of the criminal justice system.

The government's proposed criminal justice and antisocial behaviour bill does little to redress this appalling imbalance.

At BLF we pooled a group of experts in criminal justice to examine the effects of these reforms on minority communities. The findings make for alarming reading.

Included in the governments proposals are measures to disclose previous convictions in court, greater use of hearsay evidence, changes to double jeopardy law, the introduction of a new "custody plus" sentence for short-term prisoners, and tougher sentences for violent and sex offenders.

Additionally, a new antisocial behaviour bill will revive plans to cut the social security benefits of the parents of tearway children and nuisance tenants who make life hell for their neighbours.

Many in our various communities welcome the idea of a judicial system that assists the victims of crime, but at what cost?

The limited data that does exist shows that black and ethnic minority people are:

• more likely to be seen by many in the criminal justice system as a criminal;
• more likely to be stopped and searched, arrested and charged rather than be cautioned by the police;
• more likely to be prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service and face a harsher charge in court;
• more likely to be refused bail;
• more likely to go to prison than get a community sentence;
• more likely to be imprisoned with a longer sentence than a white offender who is convicted of a similar crime;
• and while in prison, more likely to be subjected to racial abuse and discrimination by prison officers and other inmates.

The government's proposal makes much of its concern for ethnic minorities, whose over-representation among criminals and victims it links to institutional racism in the criminal justice system.

However, it is the institutional illiberalism of the government's proposal that poses a far greater threat, not least to ethnic minorities."

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