Afro-Caribbean men 'face greatest jail risk'

Afro-Caribbean men suffer racial discrimination in the courts and stand a far greater chance of being jailed than whites, according to research in the Midlands by the Commission for Racial Equality. Asians, however, allegedly run the lowest risk of imprisonment.

If sentencing were within the scope of the 1976 Race Relations Act such discrimination by judges would be unlawful, the Commission said. The study, the largest of its kind, showed Afro-Caribbean men had on average a 17 per cent greater chance of a custodial sentence than whites. Asians had on average 18 per cent less chance of jail than whites convicted of similar offences.