This means that there are no powers to tackle exactly the kind of 'collective failure' identified in the Macpherson report as the basis of institutionalised racism. Other proposed pieces of legislation will also serve to entrench, rather than dismantle, racism. The proposal to take the right to choose jury trial from defendants accused of minor thefts, handling, criminal damage and assault and give the decision to magistrates will affect an estimated 18500 defendants per year, a disproportionate number of them black. Critics refer to home office research showing that a much higher proportion of black defendants choose jury trial than whites, believing that they have a better chance of acquittal there than in front of the magistrates, who are perceived to be on the side of the police. Research shows they are right, and that magistrates send a higher proportion of black defendants to prison than whites.
Research shows that, on review, the CPS often reduce or drop charges faced by black defendants.
But if cases no longer go to jury trial, the CPS will no longer be performing this review. The small safeguard against wrongful convictions for black defendants contained in committal for trial will be lost. Instead it merely emphasised the need for a written record of each stop, including the reasons for it. Such records are a way of allowing post-hoc justification of wrongdoing, not a way of preventing it. But since then proposals have been announced to allow officers to take fingerprints on the streets and to subject arrested suspects to drugs tests.