Institutional racism is not mentioned in David Lammy’s important review of the over-representation of BAME people within the criminal justice system. The IRR tries to understand why. UK prisons are at breaking point. Since August, there have been at least four outbreaks of serious disorder, at HMP Birmingham, The Mount Prison (Hertfordshire), Erlestoke Prison (Wiltshire)
In the first of a series, asylum campaigner John Grayson examines the Direct Provision (DP) system for asylum seekers in Ireland. Part-two will examine the private companies involved in providing services under DP. ‘The Minister for Justice has made an outspoken attack on bogus asylum-seeking and “political correctness” at the Oireachtas Justice Committee. Michael McDowell
On 7 September, an unnamed Polish man died in hospital after self-harming at Harmondsworth detention centre. Twelve days later a Chinese man was found dead at Dungavel in Scotland. Two deaths in twelve days making a total of four deaths already this year. The first man was found at the Mitie-run[1] centre in west London
A resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 30 June: A report on the situation of unaccompanied refugee children in Greece and ways to improve it, by the International Rescue Committee and METAdrasi, is published. Read the report here. (Are You Syrious, 19 July 2017)
A vital resource for those interested in the history of anti-racist campaigning has now been made available on the IRR’s website. Seventy-two issues of the magazine CARF published between 1991 and 2003 are now available to download free of charge here. CARF reflected and spoke to the activist movements in the UK over that time,
The Grenfell Tower inferno throws up all the contradictions between community self-help and resistance and an uncaring state. Fire this time These walls bear witness. ‘Justice’, ‘pity the poor’, ‘fuck the local authority’s Tenants Management Organisation’s, gentrification serving, class-cleansing deception’, they shout. And poignantly, still faintly echoing down the years, from half a century ago,
Are you the person we need to develop Race & Class? We are looking for a dynamic and motivated person with experience of print and online publishing to assist the editors of this quarterly journal − with a worldwide reputation for incisive but radical coverage of state racisms, imperialism, globalisation, the war on terror, black history
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum & migration 26 June: The Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) for Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) publishes its Annual Report, which finds the centre still needs improvement. Download it here. (Bedford Today, 28 June 2017) 28 June:
Although the recent conviction of aristocrat 4th Viscount St Davids for ‘menacing’ online hate crimes against Gina Miller rightly received widespread national publicity, many other similar crimes slip by quietly if local media outlets do not publish the details. Magistrates courts, where the vast majority of hate crimes are prosecuted do not publish individual trial
Read new and re-released material from Race & Class on black prison resistance, the role of the Black Panthers, and the influence of US rebellions on the struggle in the UK. As the USA witnesses a resurgence of ‘law and order’ rhetoric, Toussaint Losier, assistant professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at
