Race

‘Discretion is one of the most contentious concepts in criminal justice and related circles because those involved in decision-making processes experience a considerable degree of mandated flexibility in the decisions…it is the day to day discretionary actions of police officers, prosecutors, defence lawyers, judges, psychiatrists, prison, probation and immigration, officers among others, which are the ‘stuff of justice’ and which make for justice or injustice’ (Gelsthorpe & Padfield, 2003:1)

“Race issues go to the heart of our system of justice, which demands that all are treated as equals before the law” (former Prime Minister Tony Blair)

“How can we be sure that our system really is as colour-blind as we wish it to be? And, even if it is, how can we counter the widespread fear among the ethnic minorities that the scales of justice are weighted against them” (The Late Lord Chief Justice Peter Taylor)

Key issues: race

• What is the problem? (overrepresentation of BME people in prison proportionate to BME representation in the overall population)

• How can we explain this? (crime rates, demographics, social-structural factors relating to social disadvantage)…discrimination?

• Is there evidence of discrimination? What kind of discrimination? What kind of evidence is there?

• How can we best understand the evidence ?

• What is being done to ensure fairness and to avoid negative discrimination?

Ongoing controversies

Stephen Lawrence. Runnymede Trust – ten years on – still significant problems:

“I think it can be said that the police are still institutionally racist’ – if they were in 1999, they still are now” (Rob Berkeley, Director of the R.T)

vs.

Jack Straw (speaking on the BBC Politics Show, 22/2/09):

“…if you are asking me whether I believe the Met as a whole is still institutionally racist, the answer is no. […] If you ask me do I believe that it’s perfect as an institution and that black and Asian people, and indeed women, have the same opportunities in practice as white males, I think the answer is - probably not in some areas.”

How to measure discrimination?

• The Law (1976 Race Relations Act) - direct and indirect discrimination

• The Law (Section 95. CJA 1991):

  • ‘The Secretary of State shall in each year publish such information as he considers expedient for the purpose of facilitating the performance of those engaged in the administration of justice to avoid discriminating against any persons on the ground of race or sex or any other improper grounds’ What constitutes equal treatment?

• Procedural justice & substantive justice

• Research: some prior definitional issues and the problem of measurement:

  • ‘…the currently dominant approach…centre on attempting to uncover by ever more sophisticated techniques the purely ‘racial’ dimensions is a bit like sieving flour with ever finer meshes: eventually there is too little getting through to enable anything to be made (or)…to construct a very meaningful account.’ (Jefferson, 1993, in L. Gelsthorpe, Ed, Minority Ethnic Groups in the Criminal Justice System)

The problem of overrepresentation

• Overall population in England and Wales (Census 2011) = 56.6 m

• White pop. = 86%

• Black and Ethnic Minority pop. (2.2% mixed, 7.5% Asian, 3.3% Black African/Caribbean/Black British, 1% Other Ethnic Group) = 14%

(Source: Office for National Statistics, December 2012)

Overall prison population as at 30 June 2012 – 86,048

BME proportion of national prison population (June 2012)

= 25% (a decrease of 2 percentage points since 1998) NB. includes foreign nationals

(Source: MoJ s.95 Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2012, November 2013) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/statistics-on-race-and-the-criminal-justice-system-2012

Convictions per/1000 in the population might be quite useful! It would tell you whether there is more crime within ethnic minorities. Self reporting might be the closest we can get.

The problem of overrepresentation

• BME groups as a whole -five times more likely than their white counterparts to be in prison

• Biological theories - discredited on evidential and political grounds e.g. The Bell Curve, 1994 by Hernnstein and Murray on genetics and intelligence.

• Differential crime patterns (linked to social and economic disadvantage)

• Impact of demographic factors, unemployment etc

• Discrimination – direct and indirect

Explanations: Social disadvantage and offending

% Unemployment (in final quarter of 2011):

• 7.1% White vs. 16.9% Mixed, 16.9% Black, 10.7% Asian (7.6% Indian, 15.1% Pakistani, 16.3% Bangladeshi, 10.2% other Asian), 9.8% Chinese, and 13.5 other ethnic groups.

(Source: Office for National Statistics, 2012)

Educational Background: % achieving five or more GCSE grades A-C (in 2010/2011)

• 80.1% white vs. 80.7% Mixed, 80.2% Black, 84.3% Asian, 92.7% Chinese.

(Source: Department for Education, 2012)

2008 Stats found that there was a huge attainment gap in terms of academic achievement at A*-C. Double the white boys achieved it!? (Check this). It looks like it has improved a lot.

Explanations: differential crime patterns?

Self-report survey, 1996 by John Graham and Ben Bowling, Home Office; 2,500 people 14-25 surveyed between 1992-3; 700 Black and Asian people included; survey questions related to property offences, violent offences and drugs offences (see also Sharp and Budd 2005)

• No significant findings in serious offending between Black and White respondents – either in terms of life time participation in the 3 groups of offences, or in terms of frequency over the previous 3 months.

Victim reports: (Clancy et al 2001) BME groups over-represented for burglary and (more significantly) ‘mugging’ - but problems with data quality

‘Ethnicity & the British Crime Survey’ (Kautt, 2011) Howard Journal 50,3, pp275-288 – limitations of data

Explanations: demography and visibility

• Significance of age profiles:

  • E.g. Black African-Caribbean population = younger than white population

  • About half the...

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