subject: Ethnic minorities and criminal justice process (UK) [print this page] Ethnic minorities and criminal justice process (UK)
The question of whether or not people belonging to various ethnic minority groups are fairly treated within the Criminal Justice process is a matter of pressing concern in most western democracies but nowhere is it is a cause of greater controversy than in the United Kingdom. As is widely known, that country has undergone a thoroughgoing and sometimes difficult transition to multiculturalism over the past fifty years. The steep rise in immigration to Britain from New Commonwealth countries, which began soon after the Second World War and continued for several decades, led to the emergence of substantial ethnic minority populations in a large number of British cities during the 1960s and 70s, and the speed of this demographic change unsurprisingly, resulted in widespread social tension. Some of the country's indigenous inhabitants (especially certain sections of the urban working class) formed a strong antipathy to the incomers and this bred fear and resentment amongst the immigrants themselves. Racist utterances by various public figures (most notably the Conservative politician Enoch Powell) inflamed the situation and led to a widespread apprehension about the effect that mass immigration could have on social cohesion and public order.
Against this backdrop, the way in which people of ethnic origin were treated by, and interacted with, the machinery of justice began to assume considerable importance in the eyes of commentators and policy makers alike. The process of identifying, trying and punishing persons accused or suspected of criminal activity now began to be seen as a crucial area of public life. Fair and equitable treatment of all potential offenders, regardless of racial origin, was widely thought to be essential if racial tension was not to be further inflamed. Anecdotal and statistical evidence which began to appear in the public domain during the 1970s strongly suggested, however, that such fair and equitable treatment was not being delivered by agents of the criminal system in general and by the British police in particular.
From the early 70s onwards, credible claims began to be made, to the effect that police officers in many cities most notably London were blatantly biased against people of West Indian, Asian or African decent and that this bias was manifesting itself in unjust and unjustifiable behaviour. The perception arose that black, Asian and mixed-race people were being denied elementary justice by the police, and to a certain extent this belief has never gone away. The purpose of this essay will be to assess whether or not the depiction of the police as racially biased is justified and to establish (whether or not it is) why the belief itself has proved so durable. In pursuing these aims, we need first to establish why the notion of police bias achieved such currency, and the key social phenomenon that needs to be considered in this regard is the long-running controversy that surrounded the police's use (or misuse) of the so-called "sus" law.
