How might we account for the differential patterns of imprisonment on grounds of EITHER gender OR 'race' and ethnicity?

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How might we account for the differential patterns of imprisonment on grounds of EITHER gender OR ‘race’ and ethnicity?

After reading the research carried out by various analysts, displayed on the Home Office web site, I have to admit the results shocked me. Having followed the Laurence case I was convinced that members of ethnic groups were more likely to be imprisoned following a trial then their white counterparts. Clearly this is not the case, in fact ethnic groups on the whole are dealt with more leniently. What didn’t shock me, however, was the likelihood of a black or Asian person being stopped and searched by the police. The research indicates that a young, black man is five times more likely to be searched than a white man of similar age. It was also highlighted that the arrest rate following a ‘stop and search’ is higher for ethnic groups. At the time this brought me to the obvious conclusion that members of ethnic groups were the more likely to be carrying an offensive weapon or drugs. I was then reminded, however, that the conviction rate for these ethnic groups was far less, I therefore began to think that the police may be biased in their conduct of ‘stop and searches’ towards ethnic minorities. The accuracy in the research carried out is not of the highest standard, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not directly record the ethnicity of the defendants as they are unlikely to have visual contact with them. They do, on the other hand, have the police records and descriptions of the offenders. We can therefore see a trend in the research collected. Dr Bonny Mhlanga conducted a study in 1999, he considered cases referred to the CPS from the thirty first of September to the following October in the year 1996. His data was further analysed by himself and Barclay in 2000. His findings were; white defendants were more likely than ethnic minority defendants to be convicted by the courts. Looking at the statistics in percentages, which one must do in order to see accurately the trends due to the fact that there are far more persons from non-ethnic backgrounds being tried at the courts. Seventy eight percent of white defendants finalised by the CPS resulted in a conviction compared to sixty eight percent for Asian and sixty-nine for black defendants. Ethnic minority defendants were more likely to have their cases terminated before court proceedings than their white counterparts. There were also far more cases discontinued when an Asian defendant was involved, this figure was in fact seventy four percent compared to sixty-three and sixty percent for Black and White defendants respectively. At the magistrates’ Courts, thirty three percent of black defendants pleaded not guilty compared with twenty two percent white and twenty four percent Asian defendants. At the Crown Court the percentages were higher, not surprisingly as it is a well know fact that a trial by Jury will produce a more equitable result. However, the trend was the same, forty six percent of Black defendants and forty one percent of Asian defendants pleaded not guilty compared with only thirty percent of white defendants. For completed cases at the Magistrates Court the acquittal rate for contested trials was higher for Black and Asian defendants, the figures are staggering; thirty six percent of Black people were acquitted and forty four percent of Asians, this is compared to only thirty percent of white people.

As I mentioned earlier these statistics are not as accurate as they could be, in order to increase their accuracy pilot schemes have been introduced in eleven police force areas. These schemes are attempting to address the transfer of ethnic appearance data collected by the police on persons arrested to Magistrates’ and Crown Court computer systems. In these eleven pilot areas the amount of data missing is considerable; approximately twenty five percent of information regarding ethnic groups was unavailable. This is largely down to the new computerised custody system, which does not include ethnicity information initially on introduction. Even if the data retrieval process were more accurate, monitoring ethnic groups in the Courts is a difficult process due to their small number; information is available on the outcomes of the prosecution and on sentencing, however, it is not possible to present data by offence or age group. In addition other factors such as previous convictions could not be taken into account. The latter will obviously mean some of the statistics will be incorrect, for example the percentage of Asian people imprisoned following a trial, however, as this pilot scheme is quite large I believe the overall trend will reflect a true and real picture on the differential patterns of imprisonment. All research statistics given so far have been taken from, ‘http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/s95race00.pdf’

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Despite the fact that the Criminal Justice System cannot be seen in isolation from the discrimination which ethnic minorities experience in other areas of social life, such as unemployment, housing and education, I will concentrate in this essay strictly on the differential treatment of black people by the criminal process. The following paragraphs will be based solely on extracts and research noted in, “Black People and Criminal Justice in the U.K.”. A Journal article written by Iain Crow the Senior Research Officer, NACRO.

There is no evidence that black people are more likely than white people to ...

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