The government’s strategy to prevent young Black people’s over-representation in the criminal justice system is deeply contradictory, says a new report. ‘Policy, purpose and pragmatism: dilemmas for voluntary and community organisations working with black young people affected by crime’ written by researcher Helen Mills for the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS) and based
Theme: Violence and harassment
Segregating foreign national prisoners
Government plans to concentrate foreign national prisoners in a few prisons, currently being implemented under a secret agreement, are likely to lead to segregation and exacerbate prisoners’ isolation. A restricted but recently leaked document, the ‘Service Level Agreement between the Ministry of Justice, the National Offenders Management Service (NOMS) and the UK Border Agency to
Kenan Malik: journey of an ex-anti-racist
Kenan Malik’s latest book From Fatwa To Jihad: the Rushdie affair and its legacy distorts anti-racist history and plays into the hands of today’s anti-Muslim politics. During the 1980s, Kenan Malik was active with an organisation called East London Workers Against Racism (ELWAR). In response to racist violence, ELWAR organised street patrols and ensured the
Lords refuse to hear Travellers’ appeal, whilst UN pledges support
Dale Farm residents’ hopes of an eleventh hour reprieve from eviction have been crushed by the House of Lords’ refusal to hear their appeal – a matter of hours after a spirited meeting in parliament saw the UN pledge its support. Residents from Dale Farm in Essex, often described as the largest ‘illegal’ Traveller site
Rulings in age assessment cases
In two recent cases, the courts have returned to the controversial issue of how the Home Office and local authorities assess the age of asylum seekers who claim to be children. On 6 May 2009, Justice Keith ruled unlawful a Home Office decision that a young Chinese asylum seeker was over 18 which led to
Remembering Kelso Cochrane
Next weekend, a series of events will take place in west London to remember Kelso Cochrane, one of the first recorded victims of racially motivated murder in the UK. Fifty years ago on 17 May 1959, Kelso Cochrane, an immigrant from Antigua, was murdered in Notting Hill by a gang of White men as he
Legal reversal on highly skilled migrants
Home Office policy restricting settlement rights for highly skilled migrants has been quashed in a recent ruling. In another twist to what is becoming a long-running saga, a High Court judge has ruled that the Home Office acted illegally in not complying with an earlier court ruling. That ruling had struck down rules making it
Can community campaigns against racism survive the new funding agenda?
A community racial attacks monitoring unit is threatened with closure because its exclusive focus on race no longer tallies with the funding priorities of its council’s ‘hate crime strategy’. IRR News explores the depoliticisation process which threatens all community-based anti-racist groups, be it via the government’s ongoing strategic partnership strategy or courtesy of the newly
Faith schools survey follows report criticisms
Ofsted has been ordered to carry out a survey of some faith schools, weeks after a critical, right-wing report was published on Muslim schools. Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, has ordered Ofsted to carry out a survey of a small selection of independent faith schools to examine how they
Building for deportation
The government is creating more ‘spaces’ at removal centres as part of its drive to deport more asylum seekers. In March 2009, giving oral evidence to a Commons Public Accounts Committee, Lin Homer, Chief Executive of the UK Border Agency (UKBA), said that a ‘higher proportion’ of deportations occurred of those in detention centres rather