Black and Minority Ethnic Communities
What factors can contribute to Black and Minority
Ethnic (BME) Communities fear of crime?
Racial harassment and abuse
It’s perhaps stating the obvious, but racial
harassment, discrimination, abuse and taunts can all
contribute to fear in BME communities. If individuals are
facing this sort of hostility and harassment on a regular
basis and nothing is done to tackle it, it can quickly
engender a siege mentality within BME communities, and the
sense that they are continually at risk of being attacked.
‘The Legacy of Discrimination’
As Marian FitzGerald wrote in her recent report ‘Policing
for London’, "The legacy of discrimination and
over-policing continues to overshadow the service’s
relations with black people, and the danger persists of
replicating similar problems with other groups. But
improving police relations with individual minorities cannot
be achieved in isolation."
In other words, people from BME communities don’t trust
the criminal justice system (CJS), and this distrust is
based both on real and perceived issues of bias. In the wake
of the Stephen Lawrence report, ‘institutional racism’
became a household phrase and much has subsequently been
done by the police and other agencies in the CJS to counter
this negative perception.
One of the most important outcomes of the report was the
introduction of a new definition for racist crime. Now, if
the victim believes that a crime was racist, it is
investigated as such, period.
The Home Office also recently published a document called
‘Race and the Criminal Justice System’ which is
continuing to explore the process through which
discrimination may be occurring in the CJS. (www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/adhocpubs1.html)
However, there is a lingering sense in many BME
communities that complaints still won’t be taken seriously
and that the police still won’t protect them. (Stephen
Lawrence Inquiry Report). Consequently, even if an
individual has been the victim of a crime, they may be less
likely to want to report it to the authorities and may
develop cynicism towards the criminal justice system.
A sense of Isolation – them and us
Whether it’s due to cultural, religious or language
differences, many BME communities can feel cut-off from the
rest of the society. Language is an obvious barrier to
effective, two-way communication, but even where language is
not an issue, the cultural or religious context can be.
In many communities, particularly those that have a long
history of victimisation, there is strong sense of ‘them
and us’, and criminal justice organisations like the
police are perceived as belonging in the former camp.
There are also concerns that ‘outsiders’ will be
insensitive to or ignorant of cultural or religious ways of
life, or that a community’s legitimate concerns could
somehow be used against it in the wider world, with the
media, for example, tarring all members of a community with
the same brush.
The media’s reporting of the rise in so-called ‘black
on black’ gun crime is an example of this.
This can leave scared and victimised individuals within a
community feeling doubly isolated and vulnerable, unable to
resolve their issues themselves and unwilling to turn to
outside agencies such as the police for help.
Personal experience of crime and the CJS
According to figures from the most recent British Crime
Survey, BME communities:
- Are more likely to be victims of crime
- Are more likely to be stopped and searched
- Are more likely to be remanded in custody
- Are more likely to plead not guilty
- Represent a disproportionate percentage of the prison
population.
If people from BME communities haven’t had contact with
the CJS, they believe that they will be treated worse than
people from other races. More worryingly, if they have
already had contact with criminal justice organisations,
they are even more likely to believe that they would be
discriminated against in the future.
African-Caribbean respondents, in particular, felt that
they would be treated worse by the Police (46%), compared
with 23% of Asian and 6% of white respondents.
This all adds up to a perception that the CJS and
agencies like the police, probation and prison services do
not have the best interests of BME communities at heart, and
are more likely to scape-goat them as suspects and mistreat
them as victims.
Repeat victimisation
As BME communities are more likely to experience crime
and less likely to report it, their feelings of
vulnerability will be compounded by the lack of confidence
and sense of powerlessness that result from repeat
victimisation. This issue is discussed in greater detail in
the section on victims, but the Stephen Lawrence sub-group
is currently developing new guidance on repeat victimisation
especially in relation to BME communities.
What can be done to help BME
communities mange and reduce their fear?
Case studies
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