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The cycle of UK racism - stop and search, arrest and imprisonment

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01 January 1999

In December the Home Secretary published his annual report "Race and the Criminal Justice System 1998" - a duty under section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 to help overcome discrimination. It covers the financial year 1997/98 and buried within the mass of detail, there is further support for the view that there is institutional racism within the police service in England and Wales.

Last summer Statewatch carried out a comprehensive analysis of the figures for 1996/97 and commented critically on a number aspects of last year's report including the failure of the Home Secretary to publish detailed tables for all 43 police forces (Statewatch, vol 8 no 3/4). Now Statewatch presents unique new data with far-reaching implications.

This year's official report once again contains detailed tables for only ten police forces - those with the highest percentage of the ethnic minorities. As pointed out last time, the use of street powers against ethnic groups are likely to be higher in those areas with low proportions of ethnic minorities and vice versa. It is therefore invalid and also unrepresentative to analyse the data for only forces with the highest proportion of ethnic minorities. A full picture can only be obtained from a detailed analysis of all 43 forces. Statewatch has, therefore, once again reworked the data using an adjusted set of population figures, supplied by the Office of National Statistics. The City of London has been left out of some of the analysis because it is so unrepresentative.

Stop and Search

There is still wide variation in the use of stop and search powers in different police forces. At one end, Dorset police stopped and searched 4 people per 1000 of the population aged 10 or over. Essex police also had a low rate at 6 per 1000 of the population. At the other, Cleveland - the home of "zero tolerance" - stopped and searched 1 in every 10 of its population. The magnitude of this figure must raise questions about whether the law is being widely abused and the impact this level of stops and searches will have on police community relations long into the future.

There was also extremely wide variation in the use of stop and search powers between the white population and other ethnic groups. The rate for white people was 19 per 1000, for black people 142 per 1000 and for Asians 45 per 1000. Within the white population, the pattern of stops and searches followed that of the population as a whole. Cleveland topped the list with a rate of 98 per 1000, which was double the next highest, Dyfed Powys (43 per 1000), followed by Merseyside (41 per 1000). The lowest was in Dorset with 4 per 1000. Within the black population, Cleveland again had the highest rate with an extraordinary 419 per 1000. Put another way, this meant that 4 out of every 10 black people at some point in time during the year had their freedom of movement curtailed by the police in that area. The next highest rate was on Merseyside where nearly 3 out of every 10 black people were stopped and searched.

Overall, black people were 7.5 times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people aged 10 and over. The black/white stop and search ratio varied from 1:1 in Cumbria to 9:1 in Surrey. Other forces with extremely high ratios of black to white stops and searches were: Surrey (8.6:1), Wiltshire (8.1:1), Leicestershire (7.3:1) Hertfordshire (7.0:1), Merseyside (6.8:1), Warwickshire (6.8:1) and Thames Valley (6.5:1). Interestingly, Cleveland had a slightly smaller differential between white and black people and there the black/white ratio was 4.3:1. Asians were 2.3 times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. However, some police forces had high Asian/white ratios. West Mercia, Thames Valley and Sussex had ratios of 5:1.

These figures provide no detail of the number of people who experience multiple stops and searches during the year. All the comparisons assume that each stop and search involves a di

 

Source: Statewatch bulletin, vol 9 no 1 (January-February 1999)