United Kingdom
07.09.01
Urgent Interventions

The WCAR to condone Racism in the Death Penalty and Criminal Justice Systems?

For immediate release: September 7, 2001

Mary Robinson
Highly Commends Criminal Justice Provisions
of NGO Declaration and Programme of Action

Can the Sates Follow ?

In an NGO breifing this morning (September 7, 2001), the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, highly commended and stressed the importance of the provisions of the NGO Declaration and Programme of Action in relation to racism within criminal justice and penal systems. In these closing moments of the WCAR, it remains to be seen whether the States will adequately meet the challenge to address this crucial concern, which results in gross violations of human rights, and which knows no national borders.

Despite evidence of racial disparities in the use of the death penalty and other aspects of criminal justice systems worldwide, the documents being discussed at the World Conference against Racism (WCAR) fail to meaningfully address this serious problem. The International Criminal Justice Caucus (ICJC), an alliance of over 50 organizations representing countries from around the world, calls upon the UN to urge countries to abolish the death penalty. Until abolition occurs, it should call for a moratorium on executions until countries establish that the they are not using the death penalty in a racially discriminatory manner. The ICJC also urges the UN to include in its Program of Action language that addresses the problems of racial profiling, sentencing disparities, the exploitation of prisoners as slave labor and the ill-treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.

Death Penalty

William Spriggs, Director of the National Urban League’s Institute for Opportunity and Equality points out that the only language included in the draft Plan of Action pertaining to the death penalty is a call for countries to investigate any racial disparities in the use of the death penalty. However, these disparities have already been established. Countries must stop studying and start acting to end this form of discrimination. “If the WCAR delegates are serious about ending racism in the criminal justice system, they must call for a moratorium on executions,” Spriggs said. “There is overwhelming evidence of the racially discriminatory use of the death penalty. To continue its use is scandalous.”

Spriggs points out that in the United States, the only western industrialized country to still use the death penalty, racial discrimination is rampant. “Even the United States government admits that there is a problem,” Spriggs continues. “A 1990 study by the United States General Accounting Office that reviewed 28 comprehensive studies containing empirical data on death penalty sentencing concluded that there was a “pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty.”

Racism prevalent throughout criminal justice systems

The death penalty is only the tail end of discrimination in criminal justice systems. “The injustice begins at the first stage of the criminal justice system with unequal enforcement by law enforcement officers,” said Leroy Logan, Chair of the United Kingdom’s Black Police Association. For example, a 1998 British government study of police stop-and-search patterns in England and Wales found that blacks were 7.5 times more likely to be stopped and searched than whites. Aboriginal people in Australia are 9.2 times more likely to be arrested, 23.7 times more likely to be imprisoned as adults, and 48 times more likely to be jailed as juveniles than non-Aborigines. In June of 2000, police in India turned their backs and left a Dalit (untouchable) village in Bihar State as an upper-caste mob slaughtered 34 lower-caste men, women and children. “The fault in the system beg

While the WCAR Plan of Action urges states to take measures to eliminate “racial profiling”, the use of race as the basis for subjecting persons to investigatory activities, it does not mention the need to collect data and implement measures to eliminate racial discrimination throughout the entire criminal justice system. The ICJC urges the WCAR to call upon all countries to collect disaggregated data on the basis of race, ethnicity, age and gender on all aspects of the criminal justice system. For example, it is a statutory requirement for this type of data to be collected and published annually in the United Kingdom.

Racism in Prison Populations

The prison population has exploded throughout the world, most notably in the United States. This increase in the prison population has hit hardest people of color. From 1970 to 1984, the U.S. prison population was approximately 60% white and 40% black. Now that trend has reversed. The prison population is 42% white, 54% black and the remaining 4% other people of color.

This change in the composition of the prison population is due primarily to the increased use of mandatory sentencing in drug and other cases. For example, in the United States while blacks constitute approximately 12% of the population and about 12% of all drug users, they constitute 38% of all drug arrests, 59% of all those convicted of drug offenses and 74% of those sentenced to prison for drug offenses. In Australia, more than 25% of the prison population is indigenous though they comprise approximately 1% of the total population. The WCAR should recommend that states abolish all mandatory sentencing laws and require data disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender and age on all prison populations.

With the increase in the prison population has come the increase in the use of prison labor. NGOs from nearly every corner of the world, including the US, Brazil, India and the United Kingdom have urged WCAR delegates to take concrete steps to cease the exploitation of incarcerated persons. The use of prison labor, including chain gangs and other forms of forced labor, particularly impact members of vulnerable groups who are over-represented in prison systems. The ICJS further calls on WCAR delegates to implement stringent review and regulation of private prisons. So far, the delegates have not taken action to address the racial discriminatory treatment of prisoners.

Migrants and Asylum Seekers

Another area that has not been adequately addressed in WCAR documents is discrimination against refugees, migrants and asylum seekers. Even though these groups of people are not legally under the jurisdiction of criminal justice systems, they are detained and treated like criminals in many countries – often for long periods of time without access to legal representation. This arbitrary detention is contrary to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 protocol and the conclusions of the Executive Committee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The documents should call upon states to provide free legal representation and translation services to all detainees.

Legal Assistance for Victims of Torture

The WCAR documents fail to mention the fact that particularly vulnerable groups are subjected to torture throughout the world on the basis of race, ethnicity and other forms of prejudice. Eric Sottas, Director of the World Organization Against Torture, said, “Discrimination of any kind can create a climate in which torture and ill-treatment of groups subjected to intolerance and discriminatory treatment can more easily be accepted. That discrimination undercuts the realization of equality of all persons before the law.” To address this problem, the ICJC recommends that the WCAR add language to provide specific groups, including non-citizens, such as migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, with legal assistance in the event of torture, ill-treatment or any kind of violence perpetrated on the basis of racism, racial discrimination and related intolerance.

Lastly, the ICJC urges WCAR delegates to establish international commissions to routinely review criminal justice systems worldwide.



Contact:
William Spriggs, Ph.D.
National Urban League, 083 981-3511
Leroy Logan, MBE, BSc
Black Police Association,
0944-7887-635-375

Eric Sottas, Director
World Organization against Torture
0941-79-241-7759