Two big words that lie at heart of case

TWO WORDS lie at the heart of the acrimony over the Lawrence inquiry report: institutional racism. This is the "corrosive disease" that is said to have poisoned the relationship between the police and Britain's ethnic minorities. The vexed question of how these words are interpreted, how they translate into police attitudes on the streets, could affect the future of race relations.

During the public inquiry, Sir William Macpherson had 16 different definitions of the term submitted to him. He distilled them into one, defining it as "the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin".

He added: "It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amounts to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantages minority ethnic people."

Sir William's definition and his diagnosis mark a major departure from the Scarman Report into deprivation, race and crime which followed the Brixton riots 18 years ago. Though devastating in his critique of official attitudes, Lord Scarman concluded that there were racist officers in a police force that was not racist as an institution.

The views of law enforcement reformers have shifted significantly since then. Many believe that Lord Scarman's view was too limited and allowed racism to fester, hidden by the smokescreen of "a few rotten apples". Dr Robin Oakley, an influential adviser to Scotland Yard and the Home Office, said in evidence to the Lawrence inquiry that the " rotten apples" argument was misleading.

Another eminent expert on race and policing, Simon Holdaway, professor of sociology at Sheffield University, talks of a culture in which laudable policies are formulated but not put into practice because of the intransigence of a section of officers. He says that young officers who come into the police with open minds are in the danger of having them shut by the prevailing culture.

The origins of the phrase "institutional racism" lie in the civil rights struggle of the late-1960s, when Stokely Carmichael used it to highlight the problem of how racists within public bodies and the business sector tried to block black integration and employment.

However, Assistant Commissioner Denis O'Connor, who is overseeing the issue of race and policing for Scotland Yard, says that the charge of institutional racism in policing and judicial organisations is now regarded in America as unhelpful. It has been replaced by attempts to analyse specific issues like the stop-and-searching by police of members of the ethnic minority communities.

To some officers, even Sir Paul Condon's limited acceptance of institutional racism within his force is a betrayal. Mike Bennett, the recently retired chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, who is said to reflect the opinion of many white rank-and-file officers, said: "The whole thing is turning into a farce. There would have been a lot of support for the Commissioner among his policemen and women if he had stuck to his guns and said 'yes, there are individual officers who are racist, and should be out' and 'no, the Metropolitan Police is not institutionally racist'.

"If he has changed his mind on this, it is to keep his job, and he won't be getting much respect from anyone for this. This is another victory for the politically correct lobby."