Why is the prison population not a reflection of the ethnicity of Britain, is because of society or the police or if it is ethnic group. To find out what is the cause, I will carry out research of my own and use previously obtained

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In Britain today there are 55 million people, of this 2% are Afro Caribbean, and 2% are Asian. This would mean that the prison population should be 2% Asian, and 2 % Afro Caribbean, but it is not, the actual figures are 10% Afro Caribbean, and 9% Asian. Why is the prison population not a reflection of the ethnicity of Britain, is because of society or the police or if it is 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 will run into while carrying out my research is that figures that I collect may not all be up to date. Other difficulties that I will run into are that people will not be answer truthfully as they do not want to be seen as the odd one out so they go along with the majority answers. An other major problem that I will have is that the government figures that I have are also grouped in the following ways, Asian, White, Afro Caribbean, and Other. This means that I will have to work using those categories to group people.

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 do not speak the language, or any qualifications. When they arrive then normally settle around there own people near a port or river in the center, in this case London. This creates an ethnic ghetto, which often has high crime, unemployment, and low educational 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 qualifications. The people in the centre of the ethnic ghetto normally live in the worse 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%. There is a much higher chance of an Afro Caribbean person being stopped and searched (five time higher) then a person from any other ethnic group. This means that they are subjected to stereotypes of society (and the police are part of society), so as they are being stopped more then there is more chance of them being arrested. This would mean that in police force they are not very well represented. As every one will have the stereotype Afro Caribbean or Asians commit cirme all the time, the people in that ethnic group will do what they think is expected of them. Also as they are already in high crime areas the young people will do what they see as the norm, which may be to commit crime.

Brent crime and disorder audit

In the audit of crime it shows that of all of the London boroughs, which has the highest crime rate per thousand people. The six highest are:
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Westminster

Camden

Southwark

Chelsea

Camden

Hackney

The six boroughs with lowest crime rate per thousand in London are:

Barnet

Havering

Bexley

Sutton

Richmond upon Thames

Bromley

The areas that have the highest crime rates per thousand people are predominately Asian and Afro Caribbean areas. Also the crime hot spots for the whole of London, mark places where there are large numbers of people form different ethnic minorities. The figures also show that there is very high crime among the poorest areas that have large numbers ...

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