David Lammy's (UK Justice Secretary) own review in 2017 found that people from racialised backgrounds are more likely to trust a jury than a magistrate.
Judges are from a narrow background and part of the state infrastructure. They're more likely to accept the police or CPS narrative.
Juries protect against institutional failure.
@openrightsgroup Sometimes I think this Government WANT institutional failure but the more likely explanation is that they're just shit.
The proposals to cut back on jury trials comes as successive UK governments have passed anti-protest laws and expanded terrorism law.
Verdicts in these cases often hinge on how a jury interprets intention and political meaning.
A single judge must not decide over the criminalisation of protest.
This attack on juries comes as police are using so-called 'crime-predicting' tech more and more.
This tool relies on flawed data that targets low-income and racialised communities who are already over-represented in criminal legal system data sets.
We need the human oversight of juries.
