More black men are in prison because of faults within the judicial system, according to the first black Texas District Attorney Craig Watkins.

Mr. Watkins, 39, will join fellow panellist, lawyer Charles Richardson, and Carlton Simmons, of Youth on the Move, as part of the Bermuda Race Relations Initiative (BRRI) on Saturday night from 6.30 p.m.

Taking place at the North Hall at the Bermuda College, the panel discussion will focus on "Race and Justice", with Mr. Watkins bringing his expertise on race in the justice system to the table.

"Here in America, one in three African American males, between the ages of 18 and 25 are within the penal system," said Mr. Watkins. "I believe (Bermuda) has a similar problem and hopefully, with the innovative approaches we are conducting here in Texas, they may decide to pick them up and implement them in Bermuda."

By looking at the statistics which are similar to Bermuda, one would think that black men are bad people, Mr. Watkins added, but instead he said it showed the system was at fault.

"If you look at it based upon the statistics you would automatically think that African American men are just bad people, but I tend to think there's something wrong with the system.

"Something's wrong when you have that high number of people of colour that are entering the penal system.

"We have to look at the underlying issue to what causes these individuals to enter the system.

"Then when they get to the system, we have to address what we can do to prevent them from coming back. That's something we've failed to do in the US."

Last November, Mr. Watkins, a Democrat, won the office of District Attorney in the Dallas County district, which means he is the highest prosecutor there, the equivalent to a Crown counsel in Bermuda. He's credited with ending some 25 years of Republican rule and defeated his Republican rival, Toby Shook, who is white and reportedly raised more than $1 million for his campaign, compared to Mr. Watkins' $35,000. Mr. Watkins garnered 50.9 percent of the vote.

Still, despite the historic victory, he believes had the media not been racist and out to get him by publicising allegations he owed back taxes and was being sued, during the campaign, he could have done even better.

"It wouldn't have been that close but for the media's attempt to discredit me," he stated, "They never said anything negative about my opponent, who spent more than $1 million – and still lost."

Touching upon an issue Bermuda has been grappling with for years, as alleged by some critics, Mr. Watkins slammed the media for perpetuating most racism and stereotypes.

He added: "If the playing fields were level and I had the resources my opponent had and if the media levelled the playing field, the results would not have been close.

"The general person, the public, they don't have any bias against a person because of their race.

"I find that the problems with race relations lie with the media outlets and people that don't want things to change because they have a vested interest in the status quo.

"It's unfortunate that when you have certain media outlets that have an agenda and they play up the differences in the races and they want to keep that stigma in the public eye."

He received his Bachelor's Degree in Political Science with a Criminal Justice Minor at Prairie View A&M University. He completed his legal education at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law in Fort Worth Texas and has been a licensed Attorney since 1994.

Mr. Watkins won an office that was previously the subject of years of criticism for suppressing blacks from juries, because black jurors were viewed as more likely to be sympathetic than white ones.

He explained: "They had a policy here of keeping African Americans, Hispanics and Jewish people and certain women off the juries because it was believed they would tend to be sympathetic toward the defendant.

"Obviously that was wrong and it goes to the systemic problem that we have here within our criminal justice system."

The Innocence Project, founded around the early 1990s, suggests as many as 100,000 inmates within the US justice system were wrongly convicted.

This doesn't sit well with the novel southern prosecutor, who has been involved in the project in the past which exonerates inmates through DNA evidence.

As of October 1, 2007, the nationwide movement has helped to free some 208 inmates across America that were wrongfully convicted. Nearly all of those convicted and ultimately freed were accused of some form of sexual assault and murder, with some scheduled to receive the death penalty.

"That goes to restoring the credibility of the system," Mr. Watkins highlighted. "In Dallas county, you have several individuals that have spent several years in prison for crimes they did not commit.

"As a result of that, since I am the chief law enforcement officer in this county my sole responsibility is to seek justice – not convictions.

"And when you have the highest number of exonerations in the country, it only makes sense for us to invite an organisation into our offices to help us. We're looking at the miscarriage of justice and are trying to fix them.

"At the end of the day, this serves to restore credibility to what we're doing here, when it wasn't there for the longest time."