Reports, Reviews and Reform: Can Black communities feel the difference?

Nearly a decade after the Lammy Review proposed a new rule for the criminal justice system, “explain or reform”, a report from Black Men 4 Change asks a more immediate question: can Black and Global Majority people entering London’s courts actually feel the difference?

Black & Global Majority Experiences of the London Court System was prepared independently by Black Men 4 Change as part of the London Judicial Ethnic Disproportionality Pilot commissioned by MOPAC.

Based on six trauma-informed interviews, the report presents a snapshot of the experiences of defendants, a victim and a court employee. It is not a statistically representative study, but the consistency and human consequences of the experiences described demand attention.

One participant reported spending six months on remand after the person who made the allegation had reportedly retracted their statement and a proposed bail address was not checked. His case was subsequently dismissed. Another described pleading guilty after two nights in custody, during which she had barely eaten and had been without essential medication. A disabled Black court employee described having to fight for workplace adjustments that she observed being offered proactively to white colleagues.

These experiences raise questions at the heart of Money. Justice. Repair.

What do administrative failures, unnecessary detention and inadequate support cost individuals, families and the public? Can justice be considered fair when people do not understand the process or make life-changing decisions while exhausted, frightened or inadequately advised? When institutional failures cause lasting harm, who takes responsibility, and what does meaningful repair look like?

The report does not claim to speak for everyone who enters London’s courts. It does something equally important: it shows what policies, procedures and racial disparities can feel like in people’s lives.

The challenge is no longer simply to document inequality. It is to demonstrate what has changed.