- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday May 16 2000 17.04 BST
Metropolitan Police figures show there were 23,346 recorded racist incidents in the capital in 1999/2000, the equivalent of 63 every day, compared with 11,050 in 1998/1999.
While the national figures for this year are not yet available to compare with last year's data, Gurbux Singh, the new chairman of the CRE, said the London figures pointed to a "massive" nationwide rise in recorded racial incidents.
A CRE spokeswoman said she expected the nationwide total to double, in line with the London figures. Speaking today during his first week as the CRE chairman, Mr Singh said: "My job is to make sure that the police never again place a lower priority on catching those who victimise other human beings just because of the colour of their skin."
Mr Singh called for a "zero-tolerance policy" against racists and said lenient sentences "send out a message that it is all right to be a racist". He added: "The proof of whether these policies were working will come in the shape of a greater diversity of people working in the public sector, more emphasis on tackling poor education, poor housing and poor social services that specifically affect ethnic minority communities and individuals."
The Metropolitan Police force has come under fire for its handling of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, who was killed in a racist attack in 1993. An inquiry found that the force had failed to investigate the crime properly because of "institutional racism".
Last week, John Grieve, the Met's racial task force director, admitted during a lecture that his was an institutionally racist organisation. He said: "We have made terrible mistakes and my determination is that we seek to build a police service ready to face the challenges of a new millennium - a millennium that is hostile to racists."
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