Despite the hype that "institutional racism", is on the wane the reality is that things are just the same. Colour still decides who gets stopped by the police and if your none white you are very very likely to face more serious charges than a white person for the same offence.

The CPS are still showing bias to ethnic minority groups and not taking the police to task for *'overcharging' people from these backgrounds.

*'overcharging' , defendant is charged with a far more serious offence than the alleged offence warranted.

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Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) 'putting too many blacks and Asians on trial'

By Joshua Rozenberg, The Telegraph, (Filed: 10/05/2002)

Too many ethnic minority defendants are standing trial because the Crown Prosecution Service is failing to "weed out" weak cases, the service's independent inspectorate says in a report published today.

Today's report suggests that the CPS is not doing enough to eliminate differential treatment. It is the job of the CPS to stop cases coming to court unless there is a realistic prospect of conviction.

The inspectors note that members of minority groups are more likely to be stopped and searched by the police. In deciding whether the defendant should go to court, prosecutors should be aware that the behaviour of the police officer "might have been inappropriate or provocative".

Stephen Wooler, Chief Inspector of the CPS, said that prosecutors needed to develop greater awareness and vigilance against unwitting and subconscious discrimination.

"The position that we have identified is not a satisfactory one," he added. However, improvements were in hand.

Peter Herbert, who monitored the survey on behalf of the Society of Black Lawyers, said he had known of these problems since the late 1980s. "We are very worried by its continued presence," he said. "For it still to be here is unacceptable."

Lord Goldsmith, QC, who supervises the CPS as Attorney General, was pleased that the inspectors had identified many examples of existing good practice.

"At the same time, we acknowledge that a great deal remains to be done to improve the way in which the CPS handles prosecutions of racist crime and monitors its performance in these cases," he admitted.

In its first report on cases with a "minority ethnic dimension", the CPS inspectors found that "overcharging" - bringing more serious charges than was appropriate - was more likely in cases involving ethnic minority defendants than in cases against white people. This overcharging was rectified by the CPS, but only after some delay.

Last year, the CPS commissioned a report by Sylvia Denman which suggested that prosecutors were "failing to correct the bias in police charging decisions and allowing a disproportionate number of weak cases against ethnic minority defendants to go to trial".

The Denman report said this would provide a "good illustration of how lack of vigilance, rather than a conscious discrimination, may give rise to `institutional racism' ".

The inspectors add that their findings are consistent with that assessment.

Some 2,400 cases were examined by the inspectors. Nearly 600 arose from racist incidents while the remainder involved ethnic minority defendants. The findings were compared with similar cases involving white defendants.

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Courts treat racists too leniently, say inspectors

Racists are receiving lenient sentences, Government inspectors warn in a report today, and they call for the prosecution to be given wider powers to refer race cases to the Court of Appeal.

Suggestions that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is failing in cases of race-hate crime will add to concerns raised by a report last year which found the service to be institutionally racist.

Today's findings by the CPS Inspectorate show that the police are less likely to get the charge right in racist crime than in other cases and that too many defendants accused of racist crimes have their charges "reduced inappropriately" by the CPS.

A defendant who faces being charged with a race crime also has a slightly greater chance of having the case dropped compared with other offences.

Under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 there is no power for the Attorney General to refer racially aggravated cases to the Court of Appeal on the ground of undue leniency.

The inspectors say that there is now a strong case to change the law to include racially aggravated cases.

The report finds that prosecutors do not always have enough information to "present racist incident cases in the best possible light".

It says: "In cases where racial aggravation is established ... it is particularly important that the full extent of the psychological impact upon the victim is brought to the attention of the court."