08/09/2017 Newsnight

This is a storm of absolutely historic destructive potential.

I ask everyone in the storm's path to

be vigilant and heed all recommendations from government

A race against time to get out of the way.

20 million in Florida are told they may need to leave their homes

Roads are packed as many try to flee.

Hurricane Irma is due to hit the state within the next 24 hours.

We're on the Florida coast to see what they're

If you are in one of those evacuation zones it is entirely too

dangerous and you are checking your life in your hands.

And we'll hear from the Caribbean island of Barbuda.

It's already felt the full force of the storm -

We'll ask the head of the Red Cross there when residents

And our political editor, Nick Watt, is hearing growing

political criticism of the UK Government's disaster response.

Why are our prisons so full of young black men and women?

Is it racism, unconscious bias or just a failure of the system?

David Lammy tells Newsnight the criminal justice system has been

And on the eve of North Korea's national day, we report

The dissidents who are no longer scared to express what they feel

He just tried to slice a portrait of Kim Jong-un with a knife

and the South Korean police swooped in and took it away.

Donald Trump spoke straight to camera this evening to warn

of the absolutely historic destructive potential

"It is of epic proportion" he tweeted.

"Perhaps bigger than we have ever seen".

The President is used to pulling out the superlatives.

This time though it may well be deserved.

Hurricane Irma is expected to hit the US this weekend

and the authorities are expecting devastation.

It is only the third Category 5 hurricane America has seen

When the storm hits, the emergency services have told

people in the Florida Keys, don't call 9/11.

But first, to the Carribbean, much of which lies wrecked

The British Virgin Islands have been declared a state of emergency,

Turks and Caicos island were pummelled and declared

These are the pictures today from the island of Barbuda.

60% of its 1600 inhabitants are reportedly homeless.

The roads and telecoms systems will take years to rebuild.

We're hearing stories of people roaming the streets desparate

for food and water in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

And of boats and helicopters racing to evacuate all 1600 residents,

Just before I came on air I spoke to Michael Joseph, President

of Antigua-Barbuda Red Cross he told me about the level

We are talking about 100% rebuilding, 100%

We are talking about redeveloping livelihoods, we're talking

about reintegrating people back into new settings.

It's literally building a country from its primitive time back up

The government asked for voluntary evacuation since yesterday

and declared a mandatory evacuation today ahead of Jose.

And what do you imagine those people will do, where will they go,

Well, many Antiguans have been asked to open

That has been the case, many Antiguans have opened their rooms,

some who have extra homes that they rent, have offered them

as temporary housing for those persons who don't.

The government have put together three temporary makeshift

shelters to facilitate them, primarily now, dealing

Then the long term plan will come afterwards.

You talk about Barbuda starting from scratch, all over again.

We're talking about a population of 1600 inhabitants.

We are talking about schools rebuilding, we are talking

I would estimate anything between three to five years before

we get it even close to what it used to be.

As it stands now, Barbuda is uninhabitable.

Do you feel you have had the help you needed

so far to evacuate people, to save lives?

Antiguans on the whole have really pitched in to make it possible.

They've done everything they can to move things.

The Venezuelans have supported us significantly,

they have sent in two cargo vessels with relief supplies.

The closest humanitarian aid coming in from any countries so far.

Do you think Western governments have done enough

As it stands now, it's not being felt on the ground.

All the response has been coordinated through the Red Cross,

local officials, or the government themselves with minimal support

Michael, I will let you get back to what you are doing there,

but thank you very much for joining us.

As we said earlier, it is Florida that will find itself

Its Governor, Rick Scott, told all 20 million of the state's

residents they should be prepared to evacuate,

This evening, queues of cars on the normally smooth running

freeways ground to a standstill as they heeded the advice.

Airports are beginning to close to international flights

Indian River County is on the Atlantic Coast of Florida -

I asked their Sherrif, Major Eric Flowers,

if people were following the advice to leave.

That is very serious, we are expecting that some time on Saturday

we will begin to experience hurricane force winds. We will

close, there are three bridges that cross over to the island and when

sustained winds reach 39 mph we will close the bridges and people will no

longer be able to travel and when they reach 70 mph, all of our first

responders, fire and every with law enforcement, will be pulled in and

it will not respond to calls any more. When the calls come in on 911

we will document them and check on them as the storm subsides. People

in dangerous circumstances need to leave right now because there will

come a time when we cannot respond to them. What is your message to

those saying they will get in some supplies and stay but? If you are in

one of those evacuation zones, it is too dangerous and you are checking

your life in your hands. We have emergency shelters are available

opening at eight o'clock tomorrow morning and if you cannot go to your

friends or a hotel or get out of the state or the county, we have

shelter. Take advantage of it, do not wait until it is too late. Make

that decision now. We are running out of time, it is time to take

shelter. The Stormers getting very close, it is bearing down. Many

evacuated people, they will not return to their homes in a matter of

days, it could be weeks or months. How much do they take with them? We

suggest they take the necessary personal effects, medication and ID

and anything they would need in another state to establish

additional pharmacy fill for medications. Enough clothing to

sustain them for at least a few days but it could be quite some time

before we allow people back into their homes. Talk me through

something. When I look at the picture, it seems very calm and

blue. Is there a sense in the air that the weather is changing where

you are? Can you feel it on the ground? Absolutely. People were

reporting this morning hearing less birds chirping, the wind is slightly

globally, you do not hear that. You do not hear the normal Florida

sounds and is that sense there is something coming. You can feel it

when you go out. What would you ask first responders to do? When the

storm hits, but everybody be on duty all the time or is there a limit to

what you are asking them to do? We actually evacuated the emergency

plan on Thursday morning and everybody went to alpha bravo, they

worked 12 hour shifts. Days and nights and they will work until they

get the County secured and until we have everybody say. Our thoughts are

with you. Thank you for joining us. There has been criticism in the UK

about the response. Who have been hearing from? This is from the

Conservative Select Committee and Stephen Twigg, and they have written

a joint letter to Boris Johnson and Priti Patel saying that the response

to these hurricanes has been found wanting and there has been a lack of

forward thinking and a lack of preparation and they are comparing

this with the rather impressive French response, talking about how

the French had pre-positioned generators in place. This evening, I

spoke to tomb -- to Tom Tugendhat and he has praise for the

government, he says they have people on planes quickly, they moved HMS

ocean pretty quickly and the point he is making is the UK has done well

but it needs to do better because there is another one on the way. The

response from Downing Street has been what? The governments fear is

they are dealing with an overwhelming natural disaster and

the significance about this is it is unprecedented in both its scale and

its repetition. As you were saying, there is Hurricane Harvey, there is

Irma and Hurricane Jose. There is a big operation, they have vessels at

Anguilla, then it went to the British Virgin Islands and did

reconnaissance and they say it is unfair to compare the UK with France

because the French territories there are French soil. They are governed

from Paris. The UK territories are overseas territories, there is a

governor and a Prime Minister so it is more of an arms length

relationship. Whitehall sources say that in the long term that allows

the UK to be more flexible, but it does not have permanent military

assets there. In conservative circles there is very with Tom

Tugendhat and sources say that this is self-indulgent because he drew up

the letter and even hearing from a former military office saying this

is treachery. Gosh! Thank you very much.

The author of the report into the criminal justice system has

told this programme he couldn't believe how complacent

Speaking to Newsnight as he published findings into an 18

month study into the ethnic breakdown of young offenders,

which showed a disproprotionate number of non-white men and women

in jail, he said he was surprised at just how indifferent

He calls for radical solutions for dealing

with young offenders, including, in some cases

We'll hear from David Lammy in a moment.

First, this report from David Grossman.

She's supposed to impartially weigh the evidence, irrespective

Today's report from the Labour MP, David Lammy, but commissioned

by the government, says we have a long way to go

until we get to such an impartial legal system.

Shaun Bailey is a London assembly member, who advised the enquiry.

It's well documented that black men are treated more harshly.

This report and its recommendations gives the criminal justice system

a real, serious direction of travel to address that problem.

Let's be clear here, nobody is asking for special treatment,

just equal treatment and the recommendations are a real

Mr Lammy's recommendations have two broad aims -

increasing transparency and increasing trust.

Guys, I'm talking, you are not listening.

Bobby now runs a football club for youngsters

He says he's turned his life around and has spent eight years in prison.

He was convicted of conspiracy to rob security vans.

Black men like Bobby are 50% more likely to plead not guilty

It's a big reason, says today's report, that black men have

You go into court believing they will believe anything I say.

I will tell the honest to god truth and they will still be against me.

We believe it is us versus them at certain points.

Originally at my first case, I pleaded not guilty

because I was young, I was naive and I was like,

I think I can get away with this and I will go not guilty.

I don't think I was given the advice from my solicitor

or lawyers to tell me, just plead guilty and you'll

For individuals, the review recommends reformed offenders

should be able to apply to have their criminal records

sealed so they don't have to disclose them

Young offenders should be assessed for the majority to inform

And controversially, low-level offenders should be able

to defer prosecution and opt for a rehabilitation programme,

even before they enter a plea, so they don't even have

You enable people who have taken a wrong turn to be able not

to have the stigma of a criminal record for the rest of their life

if they take steps to resolve the problems they've

But more importantly, we have that process

Two examples, conditional cautions occur.

Someone has to admit guilt, but they can avoid a conviction

if they take certain steps pursuant to a conditional caution.

And we also have deferred prosecution in relation

to organisations involved in serious fraud.

What's great about this review, is it is taking context that are out

there and trying to find interesting and innovative ways to apply them

to a problem that it hasn't been applied to before.

For Bobby, one of the biggest problem is that young black men face

with the criminal justice system is a perception of bias,

The jurors were an all-white jury, the judge was white, funnily enough,

the prosecutor was black, which was a bit of a funny one.

But I was looking at the prosecutor like come on give me a chance, mate.

But he was working for the court system.

What was your experience with the outcome,

To be fair, the judge was pretty lenient on me.

Everyone was scaring me saying, well, conspiracy to rob

cash from transit vans, you are looking at

So when the judge actually gave me the four years initially,

I thought well, I got a touch there, so maybe I've now got a chance

The ideal solution, according to Bobby, is not really

about reforming the criminal justice system, it's about what he's

dedicating himself to now, making sure young black man,

don't end up in the system in the first place.

Well any talk of deferred sentences for the first or second offence asks

the system to prioritise the needs of wrongdoers over those

So, how comfortable would Daivd Lammy be to see us

And how surprised was he by what he found.

I didn't expect to find that the figures for young offenders

I mean, if 41% of our youth prison population is from a black ethnic

or minority ethnic background, that is heading to half

And I think the worst thing about it is the reoffending rate.

46% reoffending means the system really isn't working because people

are coming back so there are big questions about what is happening

You raise the question in your report of maturity.

Do you think our definition of the legal age of young

I met 18 and 19-year-olds sitting in adult prisons

and they are clearly in adult prisons mixing with some very

These were young men that often couldn't really assess risk

and risky behaviour, were compulsive, spontaneous,

poor at making judgments about peer group.

And all of the modern evidence on the teenage brain

and the development, if you like, of the youthful brain

is that you really sort of settle down at about 25.

So should young offenders still be classified as such

What I'm recommending is like the German system,

there is an assessment of maturity by independent psychiatrists

and psychologists able to make that judgment about whether that young

person ought to be in the youth or state.

We all grew up in the shadow of the MacPherson Report.

The term he used was institutionalised racism.

Now, you don't call it that this time.

Do you believe, at its heart, it is racism?

And I did find evidence of overt discrimination,

I wasn't asked to do an enquiry into racism

I was asked to do a review and I said that it had to be

evidence-led and you are very much looking at the academic evidence,

you are spending time in prisons, you are speaking to people,

you are really making an assessment of the figures and the data that has

And my judgment was that absolutely there still is bias...

But you don't use the term racism for a reason.

It is because it was very hard for me to get into the minds

of those who are actors in a very big system.

In the end, our country has tended to focus on policing.

My review was everything after policing.

So what I'm suggesting is you intervene earlier with something

You deal right away with the person who has committed the crime

and you can only do this with first and second time offences.

It is very hard, isn't it, to turn around to the victim

of a mugging or whatever it is and say, sorry,

at this point it makes more sense to put the culprit first?

The evidence from the pilot, the Turning Point pilot

in the West Midlands, is that victims like the system.

Because I suspect for first and second time offences,

where it isn't a very serious violent crime, what

They want that young person not smashing cars.

But you are taking the punishment element out.

By deferring a prosecution you are basically turning

to the person who has done it and said, it's all right.

We actually use deferred prosecution for serious fraud.

Because the state doesn't want to do huge, big fraud trials

that cost a fortune, we go to the CEO that has just

mismanaged funds and we ask them to defer prosecution,

to work with the system, if you like, to 'fess up.

And a lot of people find that incredibly distasteful.

I do think that if the system isn't working, if recidivism rates

are 46% for black men, then something isn't working.

Do you feel comfortable with saying, we may become

a system which prioritises wrongdoers over victims?

Do you feel comfortable saying, we're not going to tell employers

Is it fair on that employer who might have a duty of care

How far along that road would you feel comfortable going?

Well, I'm thinking of the scales of justice and I'm thinking of balance.

I worry a lot about young people, particularly, trapped

in a culture of criminality because they can't get employment.

50% of employers say they wouldn't employ someone

I might say also, my recommendations are for everyone.

I was asked to look at disproportionality for black

and Asian and minority ethnic people but a lot of my recommendations

And we ought to think about more flexibility or I'm afraid we're

building in unemployment for large tracks of the country, not just

black and Asian minority ethnic, but for white working-class

When you look at this mistrust of systems that

you have reported on, do you share some

I was surprised at how indifferent the system is to race.

If you were in a London comprehensive, it would be

impossible, frankly, not to meet head teachers and staff,

the local authority, they are all over the data.

The education world is looking at the data

I couldn't believe how complacent the criminal justice sector

Tomorrow, the 9th September, is North Korea's national day.

There will be celebrations, military parades, wall-to-wall

worship of their dynastic leader, Kim Jong-un, and, all too possibly,

The South Korean President said today he is expecting one.

And just a few days ago the US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley,

said North Korea is almost "begging for war".

Newsnight's Gabriel Gatehouse is in the south Korean capital, Seoul.

They are broadcasting into the North from this building.

Thank you very much for inviting us to your radio studio.

Based in Seoul and funded by a Church in the United States,

Free North Korea Radio wants to bring down the Kim dynasty.

So this is a North Korean anthem and they changed

The radio station is run by Jung-hoon Choi, who defected

from the North Korean army a decade ago.

The policy of containment hasn't worked, but military action

would have consequences that are terrible to contemplate.

Seoul is only 30 miles from the border.

And it's not just the threat of a nuclear strike,

these buildings, this whole city is well within range

There are thousands and thousands of shells and rockets trained

on this city and any kind of strike on the north, would inevitably

And yet, some people are actively pushing for conflict.

The defectors we met at the radio station have called a protest

They are emboldened by some of the more confrontational

statements coming out of the new Administration.

These people think that the Trump presidency might be their chance.

To underline the point, the protesters attempt a symbolic

So, what's happening is they just tried to slice a portrait

of Kim Jong-un with a knife and the South Korean police

But the police are no match for the defectors' zeal.

Another Kim is produced and this time, he gets it.

The Korean War ended in 1953, not with a peace deal, but a ceasefire.

Koreans have lived with the possibility of a return

And yet, away from the demos and the activists, in Seoul,

it's pretty difficult to find anyone who is overly concerned.

Despite the looming threat of nuclear apocalypse, no one's

It's almost as if the rapid escalation and tensions

is a piece of theatre aimed, not at an audience of North Koreans,

but at Westerners and Americans in particular.

We sit in London and people are talking about could North Korean

missiles reach London and everyone in the West is freaking out,

but you guys are just sitting here quite happily,

Because, Kim Jong-un is a crazy person and we think that he's

a crazy person and crazy people do crazy things everyday.

And Donald Trump, we also think he's a crazy person too.

Donald Trump is more dangerous than Kim Jong-un.

I don't think it's a scary thought, it's a realistic thought.

So you think there will be conflict at some point?

Caught between two angry nuclear powers, young Koreans still do

the kind of things young people do the world over.

In the case of Hong Wu and his fellow students, band practice.

Korean pop music known as K Pop is serious business.

Far more serious than the threat that never seems to materialise.

Sometimes I think, before I go to sleep, I lie down

in my bed and think, what if right now, the bomb comes

During the Cold War, nuclear conflict was avoided

because of the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction,

Today, that's an adjective often applied to at least one

of the protagonists in this new nuclear drama.

And remember what Chekhov said, "if there is a gun on stage in act

one, it has to go off before the end of the play."

Let's quickly go through the front pages. The Guardian has the world is

more dangerous now than it has been for a generation. And Desmond Tutu

speaks out against his friend. And the Times has got Theresa May is

hopeless and weak. That was our top Tory party donor accusing the Prime

Minister of handling Brexit and alienating businesses and he is a

Brexiteer. You might not have noticed,

but there's been a major solar storm this week,

with the most powerful solar flare One person who did notice

is laplander Alexander Kuznetsov, who drove as far north

as he could in Finland to find a clear sky,

and was rewarded with Northern Lights the like of which he'd

hardly seen before. # I can feel my

instincts here for you.