• Corpus ID: 145278322

Assessing the impact of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry

@inproceedings{Foster2005AssessingTI,
  title={Assessing the impact of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry},
  author={Janet W. Foster and Tim Newburn and Anna Souhami},
  year={2005}
}

• Janet W. Foster, T. Newburn, A. Souhami
• Published 2005
• Sociology

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors, not necessarily those of the Home Office (nor do they reflect Government policy). RDS is part of the Home Office. The Home Office's purpose is to build a safe, just and tolerant society in which the rights and responsibilities of individuals, families and communities are p roperly balanced and the protection and security of the public are maintained. RDS is also part of National Statistics (NS). One of the aims of NS is to inform Parliament and the citizen about the state of the nation and provide a window on the work and perf o rm a n c e of government, allowing the impact of government policies and actions to be assessed. T h e re f o re – R e s e a rch Development and Statistics Directorate exists to improve policy making, decision taking and practice in support of the Home Office purpose and aims, to provide the public and Parliament with information necessary for informed debate and to publish information for future use. Foreword The Inquiry into the failed police investigation of Stephen Lawre n c e 's murder and b roader issues of minority ethnic communities' trust in policing, led by Sir Wi l l i a m Macpherson, was one of the defining moments in the recent history of the police serv i c e in England and Wales. The Inquiry Report pointed to fundamental flaws in the investigation that were attributed to professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership. To combat these individual and organisational problems, the I n q u i ry urged the police service to examine how its policies and practices had allowed these flaws to exist, and set out a wide range of recommendations for impro v e m e n t which have been described as the most extensive re f o rm programme there has ever been on police-community re l a t i o n s. The Home Secretary published an action plan for implementing the recommendations of the Inquiry in 1999. The Lawrence Steering Group (LSG), consisting of independent members, the police and other agencies (see Appendix), was also set up to support the delivery of the action plan and to oversee its implementation. The LSG became increasingly interested in assessing the impact of the Inquiry on the police service and …