British Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has said that not all ethnic groups should be treated the same by police in the wake of the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak, who died in police handcuffs after officers refused to believe he had been stabbed by a Sikh man.
Lammy, who also serves as the left-wing Labour Party government’s Justice Secretary, said that while the “starting point” should be equality before the law, it is not always appropriate to be treated “the same”, noting the disproportionate arrest rates of certain ethnic minority groups, such as Roma travellers [Gypsies] and black Britons.
“We are all equal before the law. So that is not the starting point, but it is the case. Recognising that in our country it is still the case that on arrest, prosecution, and conviction, I’m afraid in our prisons, ethnic minorities are disproportionately [represented] in the criminal justice system. So context can matter, but it cannot eclipse violence or the fact that we need our police to act to mitigate and deal with crimes in our communities, whatever the color of your skin or background,” he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Saturday.
The BBC presenter put to Lammy the guidance from the National Police Chiefs’ Council on its anti-racism policy, which states: “Our commitment to racial equity means producing equality of policing outcomes for people from different ethnic groups… It does not mean treating everyone ‘the same’ or being ‘colour blind’ (racial equality).”
The leftist government minister denied that this meant that there was not equality before the law, stating that “the complexity is [that] equality does not always necessarily mean the same” and that it is important to “understand that context can be different for different groups.”
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