Courses to test judges' potential racial prejudices: Ian MacKinnon looks at the background and aims of a course of ethnic-minority awareness training for members of the judiciary

FOR A WHITE judge it may prove a sobering moment, having to ponder the questions: 'How would I feel if I walked into a courtroom full of black faces? Would I get justice?'

But those are likely to be among the questions judges will be forced to ask themselves as a result of the new pounds 1m racial awareness training programme endorsed by the Lord Chancellor, Lord McKay.

Whatever ethnic minorities' perception of the fairness of the overwhelmingly white judicial system, reality as revealed in a study by the Oxford University Centre for Criminological Research in Midlands crown courts showed that some passed tougher sentences on blacks. About 12 to 18 per cent of prison inmates are from the ethnic minorities, even though they comprise only 5 per cent of the total population.

All circuit judges, and barristers and solicitors who sit part-time as recorders and assistant recorders will have to attend the one and a half day courses conducted by outside racial awareness consultants over the next two years.

The Lord Chancellor's department has not yet appointed the consultants, but Jerome Mack, of Equality Associates has conducted seminars on the subject for the judiciary's family division. Mr Mack said judges must aim to ensure that the justice dispensed did not discriminate between ethnic groups and promote equality within the courtroom.

Put like that it appears simple, but educating judges in the different cultural mores that affect behaviour, and may therefore affect their responses, is complicated.

'Afro-Caribbeans may appear hostile to court officers and judges because it's more than likely that they will avoid eye-contact,' Mr Mack said. 'But it's important judges are able to put this in context. Most Afro-Caribbeans are told as youngsters not to look their elders in the eye and hold it. Other groups have other peculiarities and mores which must be understood in the same way.'

With the greater understanding of those who come before them, judges will also be forced to examine their own outlook to ensure that lurking, perhaps unrecognised even by themselves, lies a tendency to discriminate.

'Certainly you would be hard- pressed to get a judge to acknowledge he or she has problems,' Mr Mack said. 'What we would ask them to consider is their privileged upbringing in a society with a colonial background and how that will condition the way they think about black people.'

One example of different treatment, according to Mr Mack, is that often black defendants are jailed rather than offered probation, because probation officers often find difficulty preparing social inquiry reports or feel unable to work with the client.