Racial Discrimination in Policing - Case Study Example

This project was conducted as a result of research done in the reading and reviewing of a great variety of racially motivated occurrences creating racial tensions and reactions to those tensions. This project focused its concentration on the eruption of violence and the implications of racially motivated criminal actions. A specific incident that caused tensions to nearly roar occurred in Eltham, Kent when a young, eighteen-year-old Stephen Lawrence was murdered mere yards from his home by still unidentified white assailants.

Perceptions within the public eye were such that racial discrimination was often spoken about by the witnesses, the family of the victim, and others involved in the investigation. Though arrests were eventually made, no convictions were ever managed, and the case remains open. After some deliberation and thought I chose to study racial discrimination in policing because I felt the consideration of public perception of racial discrimination in policing Eltham, Kent would be the most appropriate use of this information and an in-depth analysis of the processes and procedures in policing would facilitate understanding.

The research was conducted to include true-to-life accounts of the entirety. This was the reason for seeking out governmental inquiries and files that would give accurate and even eyewitness testimony of the events that occurred on 22 April 1993 in the brutal death of Stephen Lawrence. The methodology of this project was to develop the viewpoint of the various inquiries and police accounts along with the eyewitness accounts during and after the incident that erupted in the death of Stephen Lawrence more than a decade in the past.

The impact of the work performed proves that one's perception of events rarely coincides with another's. There have been two inquiries into the events that transpired and resulted in the death of Stephen Lawrence in Waltham, Kent on 22 April 1993. Neither inquiry resulted in the arrest and conviction of those responsible nor would those arrested at the time of the incident have been convicted, instead they were acquitted of the charges against them due to a lack of evidence linking them to the crime.

The inquiries were held to reveal the inadequacies of policing and the automatic perceptions of race implied or otherwise in the methods utilized while working to discover the truth in the midst of mysterious occurrences. The evidence of these incidents would be documented several times in several testaments to the incident, including The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, Report of an Inquiry by Sir William Macpherson of Cluny as advised by Tom Cook, the Right Reverend Dr. John Sentamu, and Dr. Richard Stone in February 1999.

A treatise titled Racist Murder and Pressure Group Politics wrote by Norman Dennis, George Erdos, and Ahmed Al-Shahi from the Institute for the Study of Civil Society in London was first published in September 2000. The Black Information Link of London also provided information in regards to Stephen Lawrence and the results of the official inquiries conducted.