152. Jessica Pandian. Death in Custody.

Jessica Pandian is the author of 'Deaths of racialised people in prison 2015 – 2022: Challenging racism and discrimination.' (link below)

She has an MPhil in Latin American Studies from the University of Cambridge, in which she researched anti-Black policing, gang violence, and racial resistance across Latin America and the Caribbean. Jessica joined INQUEST at the beginning 2021 as a researcher with specialist focus on state violence and structural racism. She now works as a policy and research officer with a broader focus.  
Jessica came to INQUEST from the Institute of Race Relations, where she researched the policing of the Black community and Black British history. She came across the work of INQUEST during her time at the Institute of Race Relations through interviewing bereaved families that had lost a relative following taser usage. 
She is also interested in documentary filmmaking and is an advisor to the Independent Film Trust.

Despite decades of activism from bereaved people and their supporters, too often the deaths of racialised people in prison have been dismissed, and the role of racism has been overlooked and ignored.

INQUEST’s new report, Deaths of racialised people in prison 2015 – 2022: Challenging racism and discrimination, makes a powerful intervention as it uncovers new data and tells the stories of 22 racialised people and how they died preventable and premature deaths in prison.

The report specifically looks at the deaths of Black and mixed-race people; Asian and mixed-race people; Middle Eastern and mixed-race people; people of Eastern European nationality; White Irish people and White Gypsy or Irish Traveller people.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/31/britain-jail-sentence-death-sentence-prisons-justice?CMP=share_btn_link