The judicial report published yesterday into the murder of a black teenager, Stephen Lawrence, in London six years ago is a milestone in British race relations. It contains a devastating critique of Metropolitan Police investigations and behaviour in the case, concluding that the force suffers from incompetence, institutionalised racism and bad leadership. Accepting its findings and recommendations, the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, has radically extended the scope of Britain's race-relations legislation to include government and public-service organisations.
It is to be hoped that this traumatic affair can indeed, as he proposes, mark the beginning of a new era which accepts more fully the realities of a multiracial and multicultural society. The systematic racism revealed in the report is shameful for the police force involved, but still alarmingly characteristic of this wider society, despite all the social and cultural changes over the last three decades. That is why the government's dual response to the report, dealing with the police and the broader context of racism, is so well-advised.
The Lawrence family's campaign on the matter has been conducted with great dignity as well as passion and determination. They have had huge layers of prejudice, official disbelief and institutional resistance to overcome, until they initiated a private prosecution, which eventually collapsed. After the inquest in 1997 revealed the extent of the racism involved and the apparent impunity of those accused of the murder under the double-jeopardy provisions, Mr Straw agreed to set up this inquiry. His announcement yesterday of a further review of double jeopardy could herald a radical change in British legal norms.
The Lawrences presented their case as a matter of justice and fair play for racial minorities rather than partisan preference - an approach which has attracted wide public sympathy and cross-party support, as was readily seen in yesterday's reactions to the report and the government announcements. This opens up the genuine possibility that lessons can be learned from the affair which can make a real difference for all the communities involved, despite the family's pessimism about this yesterday.
For the Metropolitan Police and other British police forces, the Lawrence report is a shaming document necessitating a radical change of attitudes and behaviour. Irrespective of Mr Straw's decision not to seek the resignation of Sir Paul Condon, the force's commissioner, because of the further shock it would represent to its already badly-damaged morale, it is clear that a new dispensation is in train to follow his retirement at the end of the year. Existing regulations on training and discipline for multiracial policing have been lamentably disregarded, while the non-applicability of race-relations legislation has encouraged a culture of impunity in the force. Many Irish people have had similarly negative experiences of British policing methods and it will be interesting to see whether the wider scope of the Race Relations Act will be extended to cover people of Irish background.