The failure to capture his killers provoked his parents to begin a campaign to shame the authorities into finding those responsible for his murder. Though they have never been caught, through Stephen's death the racial attitudes of Britain's organisations began to be re-evaluated.

Sir William Macpherson's reported into the police handling of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. It contained a withering attack on racist attitudes within the Metropolitan Police force, introducing the expression "institutional racism" into people's minds. It sparked the most profound reappraisal of race relations and the justice system since the Brixton riots in 1981.