Institutional Racism and the Murder of Stephen Lawrence

It took the Metropolitan Police (the police based at Scotland Yard in London) eighteen years to bring two of the gang which murdered Stephen Lawrence to some sort of justice. During the struggle, led by his grieving parents, a change in British Law was brought about and it was "discovered" (I mean, really, as if the paowers that be didn't know - of course they did) that the police were "institutionally racist".
The Law of Double Jeopardy
Before the campaign to bring the cold blooded racist murderers of Stephen Lawrence to justice the law of Double Jeopardy protected the guilty, who had been found wrongly innocent at their first trial for a crime, from being brought to court again and tried on the same charges.
Institutional Racism
Many of London's (Bristol's and Liverpool's) magnificent buildings were financed through profits made from the slave trade. Was this the beginning of "institutional racism"? Could one group of people uphold the poor treatment of another? Could they profit from it? If you answer "no" to any of these questions you really should start being honest with yourself.

I own I am shock'd by the purchase of slaves

And fear those who buy them and sell them are knaves

What I hear of their hardships, their tortures and groans

Is almost enough to draw pity from stones,

I pity them greatly, 

but I must be mum

For how could we do without sugar and rum?

(William Cowper, Pity for Poor Africans)

Click Here to read an article with the full  transcript of the speech made by Doreen Lawrence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, in front of the Old Bailey on 03 January 2012 after  David Norris and Gary Dobson were finally found guilty of the murder of he son eighteen years ago.