Speaking at a Barnardo's meeting on child mental health and racism atthe Labour Party conference last week, Matilda MacAttram, spokeswomanfor Black community group The 1990 Trust, said new detention procedureswould disproportionately affect Black boys as young as 12.
In the draft of the Mental Health Bill, police powers would be increasedto enable individuals to be held for 21 days without appeal if they areperceived as dangerous.
MacAttram said stop and search procedures had shown thatAfrican-Caribbean boys were more than four times as likely to be singledout than average.
She said an alliance of 11 Black-led mental health policy and serviceproviders had described the Bill as "outright racist".
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