Race and crime in the United Kingdom
Encyclopedia
The relationship between race and crime in the United Kingdom is the subject of academic studies, government surveys, media coverage, and public concern. Under the Criminal Justice Act 1991, section 95, the government collects annual statistics based on race and crime.
These statistics have highlighted differences in rates of crime between racial groups, and some commentators have suggested cultural explanations for these differences. However, research on young people published by the Home Office
suggests that, once other factors have been controlled for, such as weak school discipline, liberal parenting, strong parental guidance, socioeconomic class, local drug problems, weak local control, siblings in trouble with the police, household size, gender, and family type, then ethnicity is not a reliable predictor of the propensity to commit crime.
investigation led to arrests but not a conviction. A 1999 inquiry—described as one of the most important moments in the modern history of criminal justice in the UK—found that the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist
. As of 2010 nobody has been convicted for the murder. In 1995 the Metropolitan Police commissioner
Paul Condon
caused controversy when he suggested that most robbers in London were black.
In 2003 Lee Jasper
, a race advisor to the London mayor, said drugs and gun crime were the "biggest threat to the black community since its arrival here".
In 2007, after a series of murders committed by black people, prime minister Tony Blair
attributed them to a distinctive black culture: "the black community (...) need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids. But we won't stop this by pretending it isn't young black kids doing it." Figures from the black community criticised his remarks.
Gang involvement is said to be a "continuing problem" in the community. African-Caribbean people are underrepresented in white-collar crime
.
Some commentators have argued that the issue of black people and crime is hidden away or downplayed, and that the fear of accusations of racism may have contributed to this.
The Metropolitan Police Service is one of the few police forces which has collected statistics on gang rape. Filmmaker Sorious Samura
compiled 29 such incidents involving young people from January 2006 to March 2009, and found that, of 92 people convicted, 66 were black or mixed race. Samura said he found it "impossible to ignore the fact that such a high proportion were committed by black and mixed-race young men".
. Criminological debates centre on whether this group is a "criminalised or criminal sub-population". There have been many claims over the years that the black community has been unfairly targeted.
In June 2007 the Home Affairs Select Committee
published a report on young black people and the criminal justice system
of England and Wales
. It said that young black people were over-represented at all stages of the criminal justice system. The Commission for Racial Equality
and youth charities welcomed the report.
Ministry of Justice figures regarding race and the criminal justice system in 2008/09 are shown in the table below.
Blacks are more likely to plead not guilty than whites, are more likely to be released on parole than white prisoners and black defendants are more likely to be acquitted than white defendants. (Sources: Prison statistics England and Wales 2000 and Ethnic differences in decisions on young offenders dealt with by the CPS, Section 95 Findings No.1 (2000) Black females are around 16 times more likely to go to prison than white females. (Source: Prison statistics England and Wales 2000)
, more black people were stopped and searched under Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act per head of population than any other ethnicity, and black people were seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people.
Black people were the subject of 14.8 percent of all stop and searches, compared to 7.6 percent of arrests and 6.7 percent of cautions. The disproportionate number of stop and searches is partly accounted for by the fact that 54 percent of the black population in England and Wales live in London, where stop and searches are more common for all ethnic groups. In some police-force areas, there were more stop and searches per head of population of white people than of black people. From 2004/05 to 2008/09, there was an increase in the number of stop and searches of black people relative to white people.
Stop and searches can also be conducted under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
. These searches are designed to deal with the threat of violence. Comparative analysis by researchers at the London School of Economics
and the Open Society Justice Initiative
has shown that, in England and Wales in 2008/09, black people were 26 times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. Asian people were 6.3 times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. The OSI researchers stated that these figures highlighted that Britain had the widest "race gap" in stop-and-searches that they had uncovered internationally. Ben Bowling, a professor of criminal justice at King's College London
, commented on the analysis, stating:
There is strong evidence that, once stopped and searched, black people are no more likely than white people to be arrested, suggesting that they are disproportionately targeted.
was a Scottish
fifteen-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered in Glasgow
in 2004. Five British Asian
men were later found guilty of racially-motivated violence; those convicted of murder were all sentenced to life imprisonment.
The British Crime Survey
reveals that in 2004, 87,000 people from black or minority ethnic communities said they had been a victim of a racially motivated crime. They had suffered 49,000 violent attacks, with 4,000 being wounded. At the same time 92,000 white people said they had also fallen victim of a racially motivated crime. The number of violent attacks against whites reached 77,000, while the number of white people who reported being wounded was five times the number of black and minority ethnic victims at 20,000.
showed that in 2007 an estimated 10.6 percent of London
's population of 7,556,900 were black. Evidence shows that the black population in London borough
s increases with the level of deprivation, and that the level of crime also increases with deprivation, such that "It is clear that ethnicity, deprivation, victimisation and offending are closely and intricately inter-related".
In June 2010 The Sunday Telegraph, through a Freedom of Information Act request, obtained statistics on accusations of crime broken down by race from the Metropolitan Police Service
. The figures showed that the majority of males who were accused of violent and sexual crimes (including those subsequently acquitted) in 2009–10 were black. Of the recorded 18,091 such accusations against males, 54 percent accused of street crimes were black; for robbery, 59 percent; for gun crimes, 67 percent; and for sexual offences, 32 percent.
Street crimes include muggings, assault with intent to rob, and snatching property. Black males accounted for 29 percent of the male victims of gun crime and 24 percent of the male victims of knife crime. Similar statistics were recorded for females. On knife crime, 45 percent of suspected female perpetrators were black; for gun crime, 58 percent; and for robberies, 52 percent.
Operation Trident was set up in March 1998 by the Metropolitan Police
to investigate gun crime in London's black community after black-on-black shootings in Lambeth
and Brent
.
Between April 2005 and January 2006, figures from the Metropolitan Police Service showed that black people accounted for 46 percent of car-crime arrests generated by automatic number plate recognition
cameras.
In London
in 2006, 75% of the victims of gun crime and 79% of the suspects were "from the African/Caribbean community."
. Research shows that the media misrepresents the picture of crime and that stories involving violent and sexual offenses are over-reported beyond the official statistics. For example, the concerns over mugging in the 1970s were focused on young African-Caribbean men, and the inner-city riots of the 1980s were blamed on young black people, which demonstrated a "shocking disregard for others' human rights". Politicians and the media have blamed black music for glamorising gun culture
, which "gloss[es] over the complex reasons why gun crimes are really on the increase".
In December 2009 Rod Liddle
in The Spectator
referred to two black rappers, Brandon Jolie and Kingsley Ogundele, who had plotted to kill Jolie's 15-year-old pregnant girlfriend, as "human filth" and said the incident was not an anomaly. Liddle continued:
Liddle was accused of racism after his comments, to which he replied that his comments were not racism but a discussion of multiculturalism
. In March 2010, the Press Complaints Commission
upheld a complaint against Liddle, since "the magazine had not been able to demonstrate that the 'overwhelming majority' of crime in all of the stated categories had been carried out by members of the African-Caribbean community". After the publication of the crime figures in June 2010, The Sunday Telegraph claimed that Liddle was "largely right on some of his claims", but "that he was probably wrong on his claims about knife crimes and violent sex crimes".
The earliest explanations, in the 19th century, offered individualistic solutions, focusing on the biological and psychological characteristics of offenders, which were particularly influenced by the work of Charles Darwin
and other Darwinists
.
Diane Abbott
, the member of parliament for Hackney
, said "There is no question but that the continuing achievement gap between black boys and the wider school population has some bearing on the involvement of African-Caribbean boys in gangs."
Richard Garside, the director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies
, has stated that "using the colour of a person's skin to seek explanations for criminal behaviour is racist claptrap". He criticised the tendency of commentators to focus on race, when the difference in male and female crime rates, for instance, is far greater than that between racial groups, and pointed out that the police have a history of targeting innocent black men.
Research published in 2005 by the Home Office
and based on the Offending, Crime and Justice Survey found that:
The reports suggests that these differences are partly, but not entirely, accounted for by differences in the age profiles of the groups. In November 2009, the Home Office published a further study that showed that, once other variables had been accounted for
, ethnicity was not a significant predictor of offending, anti-social behaviour or drug abuse amongst young people. This research suggests that the differences identified in the 2003 study are "attributable to other characteristics of these sample members", rather than ethnicity. The factors controlled for included weak school discipline, liberal parenting, strong parental guidance, socioeconomic class, local drug problems, weak local control, siblings in trouble with the police, household size, gender, and family type.
These statistics have highlighted differences in rates of crime between racial groups, and some commentators have suggested cultural explanations for these differences. However, research on young people published by the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
suggests that, once other factors have been controlled for, such as weak school discipline, liberal parenting, strong parental guidance, socioeconomic class, local drug problems, weak local control, siblings in trouble with the police, household size, gender, and family type, then ethnicity is not a reliable predictor of the propensity to commit crime.
History
In 1993 the murder of Stephen Lawrence, an 18-year-old black student, by five white youths caused tensions between the black community and the police. The original Metropolitan Police ServiceMetropolitan Police Service
The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...
investigation led to arrests but not a conviction. A 1999 inquiry—described as one of the most important moments in the modern history of criminal justice in the UK—found that the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist
Institutional racism
Institutional racism describes any kind of system of inequality based on race. It can occur in institutions such as public government bodies, private business corporations , and universities . The term was coined by Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael in the late 1960s...
. As of 2010 nobody has been convicted for the murder. In 1995 the Metropolitan Police commissioner
Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis is the head of London's Metropolitan Police Service, classing the holder as a chief police officer...
Paul Condon
Paul Condon, Baron Condon
Paul Leslie Condon, Baron Condon, QPM, DL, FRSA is a retired British police officer. He was the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1993 to 2000.-Education:...
caused controversy when he suggested that most robbers in London were black.
In 2003 Lee Jasper
Lee Jasper
Lee Jasper is a British Black activist and former Senior Policy Advisor on Equalities to the Mayor of London. He resigned on 4 March 2008 following publication by the Evening Standard of personal emails that were illegally acquired....
, a race advisor to the London mayor, said drugs and gun crime were the "biggest threat to the black community since its arrival here".
In 2007, after a series of murders committed by black people, prime minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
attributed them to a distinctive black culture: "the black community (...) need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids. But we won't stop this by pretending it isn't young black kids doing it." Figures from the black community criticised his remarks.
Gang involvement is said to be a "continuing problem" in the community. African-Caribbean people are underrepresented in white-collar crime
White-collar crime
Within the field of criminology, white-collar crime has been defined by Edwin Sutherland as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" . Sutherland was a proponent of Symbolic Interactionism, and believed that criminal behavior was...
.
Some commentators have argued that the issue of black people and crime is hidden away or downplayed, and that the fear of accusations of racism may have contributed to this.
The Metropolitan Police Service is one of the few police forces which has collected statistics on gang rape. Filmmaker Sorious Samura
Sorious Samura
Sorious Samura is a Sierra Leonean journalist. He is best known for two CNN documentary films: Cry Freetown and Exodus from Africa . The self-funded Cry Freetown depicts the most brutal period of the civil war in Sierra Leone with RUF rebels capturing the capital city . The film won, among other...
compiled 29 such incidents involving young people from January 2006 to March 2009, and found that, of 92 people convicted, 66 were black or mixed race. Samura said he found it "impossible to ignore the fact that such a high proportion were committed by black and mixed-race young men".
England and Wales crime statistics
Historically, statistics have shown higher rates of arrest and imprisonment for people of African-Caribbean originBritish African-Caribbean community
The British African Caribbean communities are residents of the United Kingdom who are of West Indian background and whose ancestors were primarily indigenous to Africa...
. Criminological debates centre on whether this group is a "criminalised or criminal sub-population". There have been many claims over the years that the black community has been unfairly targeted.
In June 2007 the Home Affairs Select Committee
Home Affairs Select Committee
The Home Affairs Select Committee is a Committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.-Remit:The Home Affairs Committee is one of the House of Commons Select Committees related to government departments: its terms of reference are to examine "the expenditure,...
published a report on young black people and the criminal justice system
Courts of England and Wales
Her Majesty's Courts of Justice of England and Wales are the civil and criminal courts responsible for the administration of justice in England and Wales; they apply the law of England and Wales and are established under Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.The United Kingdom does not have...
of England and Wales
England and Wales
England and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
. It said that young black people were over-represented at all stages of the criminal justice system. The Commission for Racial Equality
Commission for Racial Equality
The Commission for Racial Equality was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom which aimed to tackle racial discrimination and promote racial equality. Its work has been merged into the new Equality and Human Rights Commission.-History:...
and youth charities welcomed the report.
Ministry of Justice figures regarding race and the criminal justice system in 2008/09 are shown in the table below.
| White | Black | Asian | Mixed | Chinese or other | Not stated/unknown | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Population aged 10 and over (2007) | 89.4% | 2.6% | 5.2% | 1.3% | 1.5% | 0.0% |
| Stops and searches under Police and Criminal Evidence Act | 67.0% | 14.8% | 8.8% | 2.8% | 1.3% | 5.4% |
| Arrests | 80.6% | 7.6% | 5.4% | 2.8% | 1.4% | 2.2% |
| Prison population (including foreign nationals) | 72.8% | 14.4% | 7.2% | 3.4% | 1.7% | 0.5% |
Blacks are more likely to plead not guilty than whites, are more likely to be released on parole than white prisoners and black defendants are more likely to be acquitted than white defendants. (Sources: Prison statistics England and Wales 2000 and Ethnic differences in decisions on young offenders dealt with by the CPS, Section 95 Findings No.1 (2000) Black females are around 16 times more likely to go to prison than white females. (Source: Prison statistics England and Wales 2000)
Stop and searches
Police officers have the power to stop and searches individuals under a range of legislation. Statistics have consistently shown that black people are disproportionately more likely to be subject to stop and searches. In 2008/09 in England and WalesEngland and Wales
England and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
, more black people were stopped and searched under Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act per head of population than any other ethnicity, and black people were seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people.
Black people were the subject of 14.8 percent of all stop and searches, compared to 7.6 percent of arrests and 6.7 percent of cautions. The disproportionate number of stop and searches is partly accounted for by the fact that 54 percent of the black population in England and Wales live in London, where stop and searches are more common for all ethnic groups. In some police-force areas, there were more stop and searches per head of population of white people than of black people. From 2004/05 to 2008/09, there was an increase in the number of stop and searches of black people relative to white people.
Stop and searches can also be conducted under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It introduced a number of changes to the existing law, most notably in the restriction and reduction of existing rights and in greater penalties for certain "anti-social" behaviours...
. These searches are designed to deal with the threat of violence. Comparative analysis by researchers at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
and the Open Society Justice Initiative
Open Society Institute
The Open Society Institute , renamed in 2011 to Open Society Foundations, is a private operating and grantmaking foundation started by George Soros, aimed to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform...
has shown that, in England and Wales in 2008/09, black people were 26 times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. Asian people were 6.3 times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. The OSI researchers stated that these figures highlighted that Britain had the widest "race gap" in stop-and-searches that they had uncovered internationally. Ben Bowling, a professor of criminal justice at King's College London
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
, commented on the analysis, stating:
The police are making greater use of a power that was only ever meant to be used in exceptional circumstances and lacks effective safeguards. This leaves room for increased stereotyping which is likely to alienate those communities which are most affected.
There is strong evidence that, once stopped and searched, black people are no more likely than white people to be arrested, suggesting that they are disproportionately targeted.
Racist crimes
In 2005-6, 1,543 victims of racist crime in Scotland were of Pakistani origin, while more than 1,000 victims were classed as being "white British". Kriss DonaldKriss Donald
Kriss Donald was a Scottish fifteen-year-old white male who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in Glasgow in 2004 by a gang of Asian Muslim men of Pakistani descent, some of whom fled to Pakistan after the crime...
was a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
fifteen-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
in 2004. Five British Asian
British Asian
British Asian is a term used to describe British citizens who descended from mainly South Asia, also known as South Asians in the United Kingdom...
men were later found guilty of racially-motivated violence; those convicted of murder were all sentenced to life imprisonment.
The British Crime Survey
British Crime Survey
The British Crime Survey or BCS is a systematic victim study, currently carried out by BMRB Limited on behalf of the Home Office. The BCS seeks to measure the amount of crime in England and Wales by asking around 50,000 people aged 16 and over , living in private households, about the crimes they...
reveals that in 2004, 87,000 people from black or minority ethnic communities said they had been a victim of a racially motivated crime. They had suffered 49,000 violent attacks, with 4,000 being wounded. At the same time 92,000 white people said they had also fallen victim of a racially motivated crime. The number of violent attacks against whites reached 77,000, while the number of white people who reported being wounded was five times the number of black and minority ethnic victims at 20,000.
Race and crime in London
Figures from the Office for National StatisticsOffice for National Statistics
The Office for National Statistics is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.- Overview :...
showed that in 2007 an estimated 10.6 percent of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's population of 7,556,900 were black. Evidence shows that the black population in London borough
London borough
The administrative area of Greater London contains thirty-two London boroughs. Inner London comprises twelve of these boroughs plus the City of London. Outer London comprises the twenty remaining boroughs of Greater London.-Functions:...
s increases with the level of deprivation, and that the level of crime also increases with deprivation, such that "It is clear that ethnicity, deprivation, victimisation and offending are closely and intricately inter-related".
In June 2010 The Sunday Telegraph, through a Freedom of Information Act request, obtained statistics on accusations of crime broken down by race from the Metropolitan Police Service
Metropolitan Police Service
The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...
. The figures showed that the majority of males who were accused of violent and sexual crimes (including those subsequently acquitted) in 2009–10 were black. Of the recorded 18,091 such accusations against males, 54 percent accused of street crimes were black; for robbery, 59 percent; for gun crimes, 67 percent; and for sexual offences, 32 percent.
Street crimes include muggings, assault with intent to rob, and snatching property. Black males accounted for 29 percent of the male victims of gun crime and 24 percent of the male victims of knife crime. Similar statistics were recorded for females. On knife crime, 45 percent of suspected female perpetrators were black; for gun crime, 58 percent; and for robberies, 52 percent.
Operation Trident was set up in March 1998 by the Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...
to investigate gun crime in London's black community after black-on-black shootings in Lambeth
Lambeth
Lambeth is a district of south London, England, and part of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated southeast of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...
and Brent
London Borough of Brent
In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough had a total population of 2,022. This rose slowly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 5,646 in the middle of the century. When the railways arrived the rate of population growth increased...
.
Between April 2005 and January 2006, figures from the Metropolitan Police Service showed that black people accounted for 46 percent of car-crime arrests generated by automatic number plate recognition
Automatic number plate recognition
Automatic number plate recognition is a mass surveillance method that uses optical character recognition on images to read the license plates on vehicles. They can use existing closed-circuit television or road-rule enforcement cameras, or ones specifically designed for the task...
cameras.
In London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 2006, 75% of the victims of gun crime and 79% of the suspects were "from the African/Caribbean community."
Media
Young males, particularly young black males, are commonly stereotyped as engaging in criminal behaviourCriminal black man stereotype
The criminal black man is an ethnic stereotype in the United States associated with characterizing some African-American men as criminal and dangerous. The figure of the black man as criminal has appeared frequently in popular culture and media...
. Research shows that the media misrepresents the picture of crime and that stories involving violent and sexual offenses are over-reported beyond the official statistics. For example, the concerns over mugging in the 1970s were focused on young African-Caribbean men, and the inner-city riots of the 1980s were blamed on young black people, which demonstrated a "shocking disregard for others' human rights". Politicians and the media have blamed black music for glamorising gun culture
Gun culture
The gun culture is a culture shared by people in the gun politics debate, generally those who advocate preserving gun rights and who are generally against more gun control...
, which "gloss[es] over the complex reasons why gun crimes are really on the increase".
In December 2009 Rod Liddle
Rod Liddle
Roderick E. L. Liddle is an English print, radio, and television journalist.He is an associate editor of The Spectator, and former editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he is the author of Too Beautiful for You , Love Will Destroy Everything , and co-author of The Best of Liddle Britain...
in The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
referred to two black rappers, Brandon Jolie and Kingsley Ogundele, who had plotted to kill Jolie's 15-year-old pregnant girlfriend, as "human filth" and said the incident was not an anomaly. Liddle continued:
The overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean communityBritish African-Caribbean communityThe British African Caribbean communities are residents of the United Kingdom who are of West Indian background and whose ancestors were primarily indigenous to Africa...
. Of course, in return, we have rap music, goat curry and a far more vibrant and diverse understanding of cultures which were once alien to us. For which, many thanks.
Liddle was accused of racism after his comments, to which he replied that his comments were not racism but a discussion of multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
. In March 2010, the Press Complaints Commission
Press Complaints Commission
The Press Complaints Commission is a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC is funded by the annual levy it charges newspapers and magazines...
upheld a complaint against Liddle, since "the magazine had not been able to demonstrate that the 'overwhelming majority' of crime in all of the stated categories had been carried out by members of the African-Caribbean community". After the publication of the crime figures in June 2010, The Sunday Telegraph claimed that Liddle was "largely right on some of his claims", but "that he was probably wrong on his claims about knife crimes and violent sex crimes".
Explanations
Various explanations have been given for the disproportionate representation rates of arrest and imprisonment in the black community. These have included the underachievement of black children at schools, the lack of male black role models, and aspects of black culture often thought of as encouraging criminal behaviour. An important factor is that young people of all groups are more likely to commit crime, and the black population is significantly younger than the general population.The earliest explanations, in the 19th century, offered individualistic solutions, focusing on the biological and psychological characteristics of offenders, which were particularly influenced by the work of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
and other Darwinists
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is a term commonly used for theories of society that emerged in England and the United States in the 1870s, seeking to apply the principles of Darwinian evolution to sociology and politics...
.
Diane Abbott
Diane Abbott
Diane Julie Abbott is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987, when she became the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons...
, the member of parliament for Hackney
London Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
, said "There is no question but that the continuing achievement gap between black boys and the wider school population has some bearing on the involvement of African-Caribbean boys in gangs."
Richard Garside, the director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies
Centre for Crime and Justice Studies
The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies is a charity based in the United Kingdom focusing on crime and the criminal justice system. It seeks to bring together people involved in criminal justice through various means, including publications, conferences, and courses.The Centre was established in...
, has stated that "using the colour of a person's skin to seek explanations for criminal behaviour is racist claptrap". He criticised the tendency of commentators to focus on race, when the difference in male and female crime rates, for instance, is far greater than that between racial groups, and pointed out that the police have a history of targeting innocent black men.
Research published in 2005 by the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
and based on the Offending, Crime and Justice Survey found that:
White respondents and those of Mixed ethnic origin were more likely to say they had offended, both on an ever and last year basis than other ethnic groups. This pattern held across offence categories and was also apparent for serious and frequent offending. Conversely, those of Asian origin were least likely to say they had offended.
The reports suggests that these differences are partly, but not entirely, accounted for by differences in the age profiles of the groups. In November 2009, the Home Office published a further study that showed that, once other variables had been accounted for
Controlling for a variable
Controlling for a variable refers to the deliberate varying of the experimental conditions in order to see the impact of a specific variable when predicting the outcome variable . Controlling tends to reduce the experimental error...
, ethnicity was not a significant predictor of offending, anti-social behaviour or drug abuse amongst young people. This research suggests that the differences identified in the 2003 study are "attributable to other characteristics of these sample members", rather than ethnicity. The factors controlled for included weak school discipline, liberal parenting, strong parental guidance, socioeconomic class, local drug problems, weak local control, siblings in trouble with the police, household size, gender, and family type.
See also
- Race and crimeRace and crimeObservations of relationships between race and crime have been part of criminological theory since its early inceptions. In early criminology this relation was used to argue that certain racially defined populations were more prone to crime than others, and in turn as motivation for policies of...
- Crime in the United KingdomCrime in the United KingdomCrime in the United Kingdom describes acts of violent and non-violent crime that take place within the United Kingdom. Courts and police systems are separated into three sections, based on differences within the judicial system of each nation: England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.Crime...
- Race and crime in the United StatesRace and crime in the United StatesThe relationship between race and crime in the United States has been a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate for more than a century...
- Criminal black man stereotypeCriminal black man stereotypeThe criminal black man is an ethnic stereotype in the United States associated with characterizing some African-American men as criminal and dangerous. The figure of the black man as criminal has appeared frequently in popular culture and media...
Sources
- Chigwada-Bailey, Ruth (2003). Black Women's Experiences of Criminal Justice: Race, Gender and Class: A Discourse on Disadvantage. Waterside Press. ISBN 1-872870-52-X
- Muncie, John (ed.); Wilson, David (ed.). (2004). Student Handbook of Criminal Justice and Criminology. RoutledgeRoutledgeRoutledge is a British publishing house which has operated under a succession of company names and latterly as an academic imprint. Its origins may be traced back to the 19th-century London bookseller George Routledge...
. ISBN 1-85941-841-4 - (2005). . Home OfficeHome OfficeThe Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
. Retrieved 26 September 2010. - Jansson, Krista (2006). . Home OfficeHome OfficeThe Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
. Retrieved 26 September 2010. - Marsh, Ian; Melville, Gaynor. (2006). Theories of Crime. RoutledgeRoutledgeRoutledge is a British publishing house which has operated under a succession of company names and latterly as an academic imprint. Its origins may be traced back to the 19th-century London bookseller George Routledge...
. ISBN 978-0-415-37069-1 - Home Affairs Select CommitteeHome Affairs Select CommitteeThe Home Affairs Select Committee is a Committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.-Remit:The Home Affairs Committee is one of the House of Commons Select Committees related to government departments: its terms of reference are to examine "the expenditure,...
(15 June 2007). House of Commons. (Online version). The Stationery OfficeThe Stationery OfficeThe Stationery Office is a British publishing company that was created in 1996 when the publishing arm of Her Majesty's Stationery Office was privatised. TSO is the official publisher and the distributor for legislation, command and house papers, select committee reports, Hansard, and the London,...
. Retrieved 26 September 2010. - (October 2007). . The Stationery OfficeThe Stationery OfficeThe Stationery Office is a British publishing company that was created in 1996 when the publishing arm of Her Majesty's Stationery Office was privatised. TSO is the official publisher and the distributor for legislation, command and house papers, select committee reports, Hansard, and the London,...
. Retrieved 27 September 2010. Hosted at the Ministry of Justice website. - (December 2008). . The Stationery OfficeThe Stationery OfficeThe Stationery Office is a British publishing company that was created in 1996 when the publishing arm of Her Majesty's Stationery Office was privatised. TSO is the official publisher and the distributor for legislation, command and house papers, select committee reports, Hansard, and the London,...
. Retrieved 27 September 2010. Hosted at the Ministry of Justice website. - (June 2010). . Ministry of JusticeMinistry of Justice (United Kingdom)The Ministry of Justice is a ministerial department of the UK Government headed by the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, who is responsible for improvements to the justice system so that it better serves the public...
. Retrieved 27 September 2010.
External links
- "Race and the criminal justice system". Ministry of JusticeMinistry of Justice (United Kingdom)The Ministry of Justice is a ministerial department of the UK Government headed by the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, who is responsible for improvements to the justice system so that it better serves the public...
.