Is The Judicial System Racist?

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Is The Judicial System Racist?

Introduction

In Britain today there are 55 million people, of this 5% are Afro Caribbean, and 2% are Asian. This would mean the prison population should be 2% Asian, and 25% Afro Caribbean, but it is not, the actual figures are 13% Afro Caribbean and 7% Asian. Why is the prison population not a reflection of the ethnicity of Britain? Is it because of society, the police, or the actual ethnic group? To find out what is the cause, I will carry out research of my own and use previously obtained figures. The difficulties that I might run into while carrying out my research are that figures that I collect may not be up to date. Other difficulties that I will run into are that people will not have answered truthfully as they do not want to be seen as the odd one so go along with the majority of answers, or do not want to say that they have committed crimes. Another problem will be that the government figures separate the ethnic groups into 'Asian', 'White', 'Afro Caribbean' and 'Other' which means I will have to use those categories to group people as well.

Secondary Research

Home Office figures

The Home Office figures show me that of the 55 million people in the country 2% are Asian and 5 % are Afro Caribbean. Of the 2 million people arrested 16% are Afro Caribbean, and 7% are Asian. Also the figures show me that more then half (58%) of all Afro Caribbean arrests come from the metropolitan police area. A reason for this could be that when people emigrate from a foreign country they may not speak the language or have any qualifications. When they arrive they normally settle around their own people near a port or river or in the centre, in this case London. This creates an ethnic ghetto, which often has high crime, unemployment and low educational standards and qualifications. As the white population has gone through this they are no longer in ethnic ghettos so they have lower unemployment, crime and higher educational standards and qualifications. The people in the centre of the ethnic ghetto normally live in the worst housing, and areas. This may drive them to crime. The Home Office figures also show that of the 2 million people arrested, 7% are Afro Caribbean, but the prison population is 10% Afro Caribbean. There is a much higher chance of an Afro Caribbean being stopped and searched (five times higher) then a person from any another ethnic group. This means that they are subjected to stereotypes of society (and the police are part of that society), so as they are being stopped more there is more chance of them being arrested. This would mean that in the police force they are not well represented. As every one will hold stereotype that Afro Caribbean or Asians commit crime all the time, the people in that ethnic group will do what they think is expected of tem. Also as they are already in high crime areas the young people do as they see the norm, which may be to commit crime.

Brent crime and disorder unit

The audit of crime shows all of the London borough's, which have the highest, and lowest crime rates per thousand people. The five highest are:

Westminster

Camden

Southwark

Chelsea

Hackney

The five lowest are:

Barnet

Havering

Bexley

Sutton

Richmond upon Thames
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The areas that have the highest crime rate per thousand people are predominantly Asian and Afro Caribbean areas. Also the hot spots for the whole of London, mark places where there are large numbers of people from different ethnic minorities. The figures also show that there is very high crime among the poorest areas that have large numbers of people from different ethnic minorities. Is it that ethnic minorities are driven to crime because of poverty? As the ethnic minorities settle in a country they like to settle in and around there own ethnic group as previously mentioned. ...

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