- Conference
- 2006 National Black Members' Conference
- Date
- 14 September 2005
- Decision
- Carried
Black People Behind Bars
This conference notes that between June 1998 and June 1999 there was an overall reduction of some two percent of the prison population of England and Wales. Yet over the same period there was a small percentage increase in the number of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) prisoners. This highlights a trend over the last few years that has seen an over-representation of BME people, both male and female, confined within the high walls of prisons in England and Wales.
Approximately seven percent of the UK’s population is made up of BME people. However, by June 1999, eighteen percent of the male prison population and a staggering twenty five percent of female prisoners were from this grouping.
In a recent publication, Race Equality in Prison, the Commission for Racial Equality found that for every 100,000 white people in Britain, 188 were in jail. For Black people the figure was 1,704. To put it more succinctly, a Black person is nine times more likely to be in prison than their white counterpart.
This conference notes that, overwhelmingly, Black imprisonment means Black Young Men. There is a ratio of two Black people in prison for every one at university. Twenty-five percent of Black men in prison are under 26 years old. Since New Labour came into power in 1997 there has been a significant rise in the number of BME people in Britain’s jails.
Conference believes that Black people are no more inclined than any other people are to indulge in criminal activities. Conference believes further that the social, educational, economic and political systems have continued to fail us; we have been used, abused, criminalised and rejected. A good example of this is Stop and Search: this policy has always disproportionately affected BME people, but this has now been raised to a whole new level with the police explicitly targeting non-white people in the aftermath of the July bombings.
As a group of trade unionists this conference calls upon the wider trade union structure to support, campaign and help to bring about a reversal of the trends highlighted above.
Specifically, this conference calls upon the National Black Members’ Committee to work closely with structures within UNISON, including Labour Link, as well as appropriate external organisations to campaign vigorously for the government to undertake a ‘root and branch’ investigation into the phenomenon of the over- representation of BME people in prison and to establish structures that will bring about a reversal of this trend.
Conference acknowledges that this undertaking will not be accomplished in the very short term and therefore calls upon the NBMC to update regions on a regular basis as to their work and progress that has been made.