Dear IRR News subscriber,

This week, the IRR welcomes two path-breaking reports, by Amnesty International and The Monitoring Group, on the racially discriminatory nature of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Trident Gangs Matrix intelligence database. IRR News also gathers together critical perspectives on gang databases from Lord Herman Ouseley and the advocacy organisation Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA).

By revealing institutional racism in action, these two reports are beginning to change the terms of debate. The Information Commissioner’s Office has launched an investigation into whether the Gangs Matrix breaches the Data Protection Act. But it’s not just the police, but the Home Office, local authorities and all other public sector agencies involved in the multi-agency approach to combating ‘gang-associated activity’ that have questions to answer about the racial data profiling of young black men and boys. For, as the IRR argues, there is evidence to suggest we are witnessing a continuation of the ‘Windrush scandal’, only, this time it is the grandchildren of the Windrush generation that have been let down by the expansive scope of a ‘hostile environment’ for inhabitants of certain neighbourhoods and particular estates in London and, in other areas of the UK.

We also review a new report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons on an inspection of a 2017 charter flight and we also have our regular calendar of racism and resistance is available here.

IRR News Team