Race and crime in the United Kingdom

Robbery, drug use, and gang violence have been associated with black people since the 1960s.[4] The Metropolitan Police has been accused of institutional racism on a number of occasions. One example often cited is the Mangrove Nine, a group eventually acquitted in 1970.

In 1995, the London Metropolitan Police commissioner Paul Condon said that the majority of robberies in London were committed by black people.[5] Operation Trident was set up in March 1998 by the Metropolitan Police to investigate gun crime in London's black community after black-on-black shootings in Lambeth and Brent.[6] In 2003, Lee Jasper, Senior Policy Advisor on Equalities to the London mayor, said drugs and gun crime were the "biggest threat to the black community since its arrival here".[7]

In 2007, prime minister Tony Blair attributed a series of murders committed by black people to an affinity for gang culture: "the black community (...) need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids. But we won't stop this by pretending it isn't young black kids doing it."[8] Some from the black community criticised his remarks.[9] Gang involvement in general is said to be a "continuing problem".[10] African-Caribbean people are over represented in violent crimes.[11]

Some media columnists have argued that the issue of black people and crime is downplayed, due to fear of accusations of racism.[12][13]

The London Metropolitan Police Service is one of the few police forces which has collected statistics on gang rape. Filmmaker Sorious Samura compiled 29 such incidents involving young people from January 2006 to March 2009, and found that, of 92 people convicted, 66 were black or mixed race. Samura said he found it "impossible to ignore the fact that such a high proportion were committed by black and mixed-race young men".[14]

An anti-knife crime demonstration in Wood Green, north London, October 2019

Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that in 2007 an estimated 10.6 percent of London's population of 7,556,900 were black.[30] Evidence shows that the black population in London boroughs increases with the level of deprivation, and that the level of crime also increases with deprivation, such that "It is clear that ethnicity, deprivation, victimisation and offending are closely and intricately inter-related".[31]

In June 2010, through a Freedom of Information Act request, The Sunday Telegraph obtained statistics on accusations of crime broken down by race from the Metropolitan Police Service.[n 2] The figures showed that the majority of males who were accused of violent crimes in 2009–2010 were black. Of the recorded 18,091 such accusations against males, 54 percent accused of street crimes were black; for robbery, 58 percent; and for gun crimes, 67 percent.[32]

Street crimes include muggings, assault with intent to rob, and snatching property. In 2010, black males accounted for 29 percent of the male victims of gun crime and 24 percent of the male victims of knife crime.[32]

Between April 2005 and January 2006, figures from the Metropolitan Police Service showed that black people accounted for 46 percent of car-crime arrests generated by automatic number plate recognition cameras.[33]

Young men, particularly young black men, are commonly stereotyped as engaging in criminal behaviour.[34] Past research shows that the media misrepresents the picture of crime and that stories involving violent and sexual offences are over-reported beyond the official statistics.[35] For example, the concerns over mugging in the 1970s were focused on young African-Caribbean men, and the inner city riots of the 1980s were blamed on young black people.[36]

In December 2009 Rod Liddle in The Spectator referred to two black rappers, Brandon Jolie and Kingsley Ogundele, who had plotted to kill Jolie's 15-year-old pregnant girlfriend, as "human filth" and said the incident was not an anomaly. Liddle continued:

The overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community. Of course, in return, we have rap music, goat curry and a far more vibrant and diverse understanding of cultures which were once alien to us. For which, many thanks.[37]

Liddle was accused of racism after his comments, to which he replied that his comments were not racism but a discussion of multiculturalism.[38][39] In March 2010, the Press Complaints Commission upheld a complaint against Liddle, since "the magazine had not been able to demonstrate that the 'overwhelming majority' of crime in all of the stated categories had been carried out by members of the African-Caribbean community".[40] After the publication of the crime figures in June 2010, The Sunday Telegraph claimed that Liddle was "largely right on some of his claims", but "that he was probably wrong on his claims about knife crimes and violent sex crimes".[32]

Various explanations have been given for the disproportionate representation rates of arrest and imprisonment of black people. These have included the underachievement of black males (particularly of Caribbean descent) at schools, the lack of black male role models, and aspects of (the perceived) black culture often thought of as encouraging criminal behaviour.

The earliest explanations, in the 19th century, offered individualistic solutions, focusing on the biological and psychological characteristics of offenders, which were particularly influenced by the work of Charles Darwin and other Darwinists.[41]

In 2010, Diane Abbott, the member of parliament for Hackney said, "There is no question but that the continuing achievement gap between black boys and the wider school population has some bearing on the involvement of African-Caribbean boys in gangs."[42]

Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, critically observed a tendency to focus on race rather than other demographics (e.g. male versus female) for which there is a far greater crime rate difference. He also observed that the police have a history of targeting black men.[43]

Research published by the Home Office—based on the Offending, Crime and Justice Survey of 2003—found that:

"White respondents and those of Mixed ethnic origin were more likely to say they had offended, both on an ever and last year basis than other ethnic groups. This pattern held across offence categories and was also apparent for serious and frequent offending. Conversely, those of Asian origin were least likely to say they had offended."[44]

The reports suggests that these differences are partly accounted for by differences in the age profiles of the groups.[44] The Home Office published an updated version of the survey (using 2006 data) showing that once other variables had been accounted for, ethnicity was not a significant predictor of offending, anti-social behaviour, or drug abuse amongst young people. This research suggests that the differences identified in the 2003 study are "attributable to other characteristics of these sample members", rather than ethnicity. The factors controlled for included weak school discipline, parenting, strong parental guidance, socioeconomic class, local drug problems, weak local control, siblings in trouble with the police, household size, gender, and family type.[45] Interestingly, in a survey done by Home Office in 2016/2017, asking people ages 16-59 if they had used drugs in the past year, it transpired that, of those asked, 20% of those of mixed ethnicity reported to have used drugs in the last year, followed by nearly 10% of those of white ethnicity admitting to using any drug in the last year. This is in contrast with the less than 5% of black people who had used any form of drug in the last year.[46] However, it is important to note that some people may have been dishonest about taking drugs, by either saying they had not taken any drugs when they had, or by saying that they had when they in fact had not.

• Chigwada-Bailey, Ruth (2003). Black Women's Experiences of Criminal Justice: Race, Gender and Class: A Discourse on Disadvantage. Waterside Press. ISBN 1-872870-52-X
• Muncie, John (ed.); Wilson, David (ed.). (2004). Student Handbook of Criminal Justice and Criminology. Routledge. ISBN 1-85941-841-4
• (2005). "Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System – 2004" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 April 2007. (534 KB). Home Office. Retrieved 26 September 2010.
• Jansson, Krista (2006). "Black and Minority Ethnic groups' experiences and perceptions of crime, racially motivated crime and the police: Findings from the British Crime Survey" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 October 2010. (363 KB). Home Office. Retrieved 26 September 2010.
• Marsh, Ian; Melville, Gaynor. (2006). Theories of Crime. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-37069-1
• Home Affairs Select Committee (15 June 2007). House of Commons. "Young Black People and the Criminal Justice System" (PDF). (1.29 MB) (Online version). The Stationery Office. Retrieved 26 September 2010.
• (October 2007). "The Government's Response to the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee Report: Young Black People and the Criminal Justice System" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 October 2010. (256 KB). The Stationery Office. Retrieved 27 September 2010. Hosted at the Ministry of Justice website.
• (December 2008). "Home Affairs Select Committee Inquiry: Young Black People and the Criminal Justice System" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 October 2010. (738 KB). The Stationery Office. Retrieved 27 September 2010. Hosted at the Ministry of Justice website.
• (June 2010). "Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2008/09" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 February 2011. (945 KB). Ministry of Justice. Retrieved 27 September 2010.

• "Race and the criminal justice system" (2010) - UK Ministry of Justice