PRISON REFORM TRUST PRESS RELEASE
ZAHID MUBAREK

The Prison Reform Trust welcomes the Commission for Racial Equality’s report of its formal investigation into HM Prison Service and the commitment by the Service to take further action to eradicate racism.

Speaking today, Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust said;

“The painstaking, and overwhelmingly painful, report by the Commission for Racial Equality into the needless, tragic death of Zahid Mubarek, is a damning indictment of a prison system which at the time was rotten to the core.  This catalogue of failure must call into question the inexcusable decision not to hold an immediate public enquiry.

Placing Zahid Mubarek in a prison cell with a dangerous, mentally ill racist was akin to a death sentence. 

This investigation focussed on the Prison Service alone.  Important questions still remain about the court’s decision to imprison Zahid Mubarek for comparatively minor offences.

Three years on, with our prisons full to bursting and the system under intolerable pressure, we fear that another tragedy of this kind could happen again tomorrow.”

Notes to Editors:

1. In England and Wales, in 2001, over 14,000 prisoners (21 per cent of the prison population) were from a minority ethnic group – between two and three times the proportion of the general population.  Black prisoners alone account for 15 per cent of the total number of prisoners.  The imprisonment rate for black people is 934 per 100,000, over eight times higher than the imprisonment rates for either Asians or Whites, which are 126 per 100,000 and 114 per 100,000 respectively.  If white people were imprisoned at the rate of black people, England and Wales would have almost half a million people in prison.

2.  Between 1999 and 2002 the total prison population grew by just over 12 per cent but the number of black prisoners increased by 51 per cent.

3.   Black people are five times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched.  Once arrested, black people are more likely to be remanded in custody than other offenders charged with similar offences.  Results from five pilot police areas on magistrates’ court decisions indicated that black and Asian defendants were less likely to be found not guilty than white defendants.  Home Office research also suggests that black prisoners are likely to be given longer sentences than either white or Asian prisoners.  Once in prison, black people are more likely to be found guilty of disciplinary offences and less likely to have access to constructive activities.

4.   The Prison Service now has a Diversity and Equality Group and a racial equality Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for the first ever time.  In 2001-2002, the KPI target was to have at least 4.1 per cent minority ethnic staff.  This was exceeded, with 4.9 per cent of Prison Service staff coming from minority ethnic groups, although disproportionately low numbers actually worked in an operational role.  However, it is not until 2007 that the Prison Service aims to have a workforce which represents the ethnic composition of society.  Of those recruited to the Prison Service in 2001-2002, 7.9 per cent were from minority ethnic groups as were 6.3 per cent of staff promoted during the year.

5. On 4 July 2003 the prison population in England and Wales was 73,799, its highest ever recorded level.

6. Over the last year prison overcrowding has reached unprecedented levels.. At the end of June 2003, 85 of the 138 prisons in England and Wales were overcrowded.

7. At the end of February 2003 over 17,000 prisoners were held in overcrowded accommodation. This includes prisoners doubling up, those held three to a cell designed for two and any prisoners overcrowded in dormitories and larger cells.