Editorial Comment
| Author | Kevin Wong, Kris Christmann, Gavin Bailey |
| Pages | 1-3 |
1
British Journal of Community Justice
©2020 Manchester Metropolitan University
ISSN 1475-0279
Vol. 16(1) 1–3
Editorial
Kevin Wong, Kris Christmann and Gavin Bailey
The Macpherson report, also known as the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report, was
published over 20 years ago in February 1999. The unprovoked racist murder of Stephen
Lawrence in a London suburb, and the subsequent failures of the police investigation, led
to ‘70 recom mendations aimed at “the elimination of racist prejudice and disadvantage
and the demonstration of fairness in all aspects of policing”’ (MacPh erson, 1999:375).
Widely regarded as a watershed in race relations in the U nited Kingdom (UK), the report
made recommendations aiming at openness and accou ntability, a sharpening of focus
through defining a ra cist incident, proposals for reporting, investigating and pros ecuting
racist crimes, supporting v ictims and witnesses, and training for police s taff in response to
institutional racism.
Reflecting on the findings and recommendations of the MacPherson report, this is the first
of a two-part special issue which examines the processes of hate crime (the term now
used to include all crime motiv ated or aggravated by prejudice, not just racism) from th e
perspectives of victims, victim services, the criminal justice system and perpetrators. Its
publication is timely, as hate crimes have not dissipated in the two decades since the
report. Inevitably, the prominence of th eir reporting in the media has waxed and waned
over this time: in resp onse to civil disturbances, terrorist incidents, Brexit and other socio-
political events.
The current COVID-19 pandemic is a salutary case in point. This public health and socio-
economic crisis appears to have fuelled hate crimes against Chinese and South East Asian
people. In the UK, the number of offences reported in the first three months of 2020 was
almost triple tho se reported in the same period for 2018 and 2019 and included assaults,
robberies, harassment and criminal damage (Lovett, 2020). Similar increases in hate crime
offences against Asian people have been reported in the United States (US) in the wake of
Donald Trump’s labelling of COVID-19 as the ‘China Virus’ (Gerstman, 2020). In the UK,
anti-Muslim sentiment has not diminished during the pandemic, with social media stories
linking Muslims to the spread of COVID-19, the dissemination of anti-Muslim memes and
the sharing of fake news stories (Birmingham City University, 2020).
Most recently, in the US, the killing of George Floyd while he was being restrained by the
Minneapolis police, and the subsequent protests and civil unrest, have been s obering
To continue reading
Request your trial