demonstrated outside the notorious Stoke Newington police station on 23 December to protest about the death of yet another black person in custody. ELLEN MOORE investigates a growing scandal of racist violence. MR LAPITE was arrested on the night of Saturday 18 December by two police officers who are now suspended. He was dead within twenty minutes. His family say his face is unrecognisable and his body covered in bruises. They are calling for an independent inquiry.
This brutal murder of another black man in custody brings the focus back onto the - notorious Stoke Newington police force who have already been the cause of record damages being paid to people in compensation for wrongful arrests and brutal treatment.
But its not just in Stoke Newington that black people die when in contact with the purveyors of "justice'. The violence of the state within the criminal justice system is brutal and arbitrary but particularly targeted at black people.
Over the last ten years 84 black people have died in police custody, in prison or during police and immigration officials visits to their homes. All deaths in custody highlight the brutality of the criminal justice system, but deaths amongst black prisoners and detainees emphasize the înstitutionalised racism endemic within the system.
Black youth are harassed and stopped in the street on the basis of nothing more than their blackness (an event even more likely to occur with increasing frequency with the virtual re-introduction of the 'sus' laws in the new Criminal Justice Act); black people are subject to violent arrest because of the racist assumption of the police that black people are 'violent' and aggressive, and must be dealt with in kind. The deaths this year of Mark Harris and Oluwashiji Lapite highlight this brutality.
Contempt for black people on the streets is carried into contempt for black people in their homes. The deaths of Cynthia Jarrett, Joy Gardner and more recently of Kwanele Siziba and Joseph Nalue bear witness to this process.
Black people are over represented as prisoners and patients in special hospitals. Again recent campaigns such as that about the death of Orville Blackwood bear witness to state violence meted out to black people within the mental health system. The unlawful killing' of Omasase Lumumba in Pentonville prison in 1993 illustrates the racist violence of the prison system.
How does this consistent murderous racism go on year after year? How is racist violence institutionalised into policy?
The police, prison service and special hospitals each in different ways manage to remain completely unaccountable to any public forum. The extent to which they are unaccountable, inaccessible and specialised serves to increase and makes their power more absolute.
The level of secrecy surrounding these institutions increases their employees ability to get away with abuse and even murder. Where there is no adequate forum for calling an institution to account in the public domain, abusive practices run rampant and racist police and prison officers literally get away with murder.
Backed by unaccountable, secret institutions individuals within the police, prison service and special hospitals assume a stance of invincibility and a sense of being untouchable whatever they do.
Flouting
A recent inquest into the death of a psychiatric patient in police custody revealed a catalogue of failures on the part of the medical and police services, and deliberate flouting of the police instruction manual by one officer which led to the detainee's death.
When asked if those present in the court could assume that he would not flout those rules RIGHiS again the officer answered 'no, they could not make that assumption'.
That police officer had heard that morning the Crown Prosecution Service had decided not to be prosecute him for manslaughter. Supported by other high ranking officers, watched by members of the CIB and members of the Police Complaints Authority (PCA), he felt he could confidently assume that he could publicly declare he would ignore the rules and all he would receive would be some sort of rap on the fingers.
Structured like the military, the strict hierarchy of command which the police force and prison service fosters closes ranks when under attack. The chain of command becomes the chain of cover-up.
The so-called 'independent' PCA is staffed by highly vetted civil servants who are as likely to work there as the Home Office -its independence is laughable.
Prisons and special hospitals are virtually unassailable. Closed and guarded by the Home Office none may enter without their approval and information is as closely guarded as information about 'national security'.
Deaths of black people -whether murder or suicide -are mere cold statistics.
Inquests afford little relief. The coroner's court is there to establish the cause of death, not the reasons why, or who is responsible.
The coroner has complete control, allowing or disallowing questioning on behalf of relatives according to his own whim.
He is aided by the police;
he alone has access to the findings of any internal inquiry (not even MPs have access to such information);
he decides what to divulge to the court, which witnesses to call and in which order; and he alone can sum up and direct the jury on which of four very restricted verdicts they can bring.
Even in the unlikely event that a jury returns a verdict of 'unlawful killing', the only verdict which allows a chance to reopen the case with a view to prosecution and/or compensation, it is unlikely to be successful.
Out of 75 cases of black deaths in custody between 1969 and 1991 only one has resulted in a prosecution of the police.
Redress through the law is an illusion. The murder of Oluwashiji Lapite in Stoke Newington graphically illus- HOME NEWS trates the futility of seeking change through the legal system.
Stoke Newington police
have been at the centre of controversy for years - and recently at the centre of a series of corruption scandals and allegations of brutality.
Despite this their harassment of the local black community continues, and two plain clothes police officers have just been involved in the brutal death of another defenceless black man. • Contact Newham Monitoring Project for details of the Family Campaign Tel: 081-552 6284.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 75. 7 January 1995, Page 10 Countries must cut wages to stay competitive on the world market... Thus, the USA cuts wages io compete with Japan, Japan does the same to compele with Korea and so OП... ... with the result that workers everywhere no longer earn enough to buy what they produce! alist powers and multinationals. We see