Page 49 - JUSTICE Tackling Racial Injustice - Children and the Youth Justice System

determining the relevance and admissibility of Drill due to the corrosive
effect of portraying a genre of music so closely connected to Black
communities as innately illegal, dangerous and problematic.

2.54 Moreover, Drill should only be presented as expert evidence where it is indeed
indecipherable to a reasonable juror. Such expert evidence must meet the
ordinary requirements pursuant to Criminal Practice Direction 5 and Criminal
Procedure Rule 19; namely that prosecution and defence must identify the real
issues in dispute before the evidence is submitted to a jury for consideration.
In order to avoid the potential for misinterpretation, we recommend that joint
experts should genuinely understand Drill and its cultural context. Any
report on the content should, where possible, be agreed by both the
defence and prosecution. This would allow for a more objective
assessment of the relevance of the evidence, and safeguard against
inappropriate extensions of what might be viewed as opinion evidence.

The PREVENT Programme

2.55 Following 9/11, the ‘war on terror’ and subsequent terrorist attacks in the UK,
the Muslim prison population within the UK doubled in 16 years. Muslim
people now account for 16% of those in prison, despite representing just 5%
of the general population. 145 Moreover, only one percent of Muslim prisoners
have been convicted of terror related offences, while at the same time make up
half of all people held in Close Supervision Centres. 146 This suggests that
factors other than the offence committed are taken into account when
considering close supervision.

2.56 In addition to being sentenced for longer periods, Muslim communities have
felt that they have been placed under increased surveillance, primarily through
PREVENT. 147 While guidance is clear that PREVENT is not a police
programme, we understand that policing plays a vital role in the programme.
As a result, the roll-out of PREVENT has led to Muslim communities feeling

145 Prison Reform Trust, ‘Prison: the facts – Bromley Briefings Summer 2019’, p. 7.
146 Ibid – “CSCs are designed to manage highly disruptive and high risk people in prison”.
147 PREVENT is one of four elements of CONTEST, the government’s counter-terrorism strategy.

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