Bias exists at every stage of the Criminal Justice System - Discuss. PDF

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The above statement ‘Bias exists at every stage of the Criminal Justice System’ is one given much consideration when studying the processes and effectiveness of the criminal justice system. In this essay I aim to identify whether the statement given presents a reality or whether it is merely fictiti...

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Georgia Benjamin Trials and Errors: ‘Bias exists at every stage of the Criminal Justice System’. Discuss.

The above statement ‘Bias exists at every stage of the Criminal Justice System’ is one given much consideration when studying the processes and effectiveness of the criminal justice system. In this essay I aim to identify whether the statement given presents a reality or whether it is merely fictitious. In order to understand the power and the legitimacy of the proclamation however, we must first identify the meanings attached to it. ‘Bias’ is a word used to describe an act of preference or supremacy towards one object, converse to another. This implies that in two opposing views one is more favoured, and in that respect given more validation or credit. Similarly, this could be compared to the definition of ‘discrimination’ which describes “unfavourable treatment based on a person’s sex, gender, ‘race’, ethnicity, culture, religion, language, class, sexual preference, age, physical disability or any other improper ground.” [ CITATION McL13 \l 2057 ] Meaning, with this in mind, it could be said that this is not only a question of bias in the Criminal Justice System, but also a question of the existence of discrimination in the Criminal Justice System. The initial part of my essay is going to focus on the policies implemented in more contemporary years in order to improve the current Criminal Justice System. For instance, “Legislation prohibiting discrimination on grounds such as race, gender, religion, disability and sexual orientation (Such as the equality Act 2010) has expanded in scope over the years.” [ CITATION Cav13 \l 2057 ] In discovering the different Acts that have been introduced in order to further improve the system, this will give me an insight into what the current issues are, and whether or not ‘bias’ within criminal justice is one of them. Inevitably the equality act is an example of a policy introduced as an aftermath of high levels of discrimination, also included in the Criminal Justice System. The introduction of the equality act brings together 116 different legislations in one legal framework to protect the rights of individuals. This included the equal pay act (1970), the sex discrimination act (1975), race relations act (1976) and many more. This could feasibly imply that before this act was implemented there may have been a lack of equality between different social groups prior to the acts introduction. In addition, this is also implied when looking at section ninetyfive of the criminal justice act (1991). “The issue of possible bias in the Criminal Justice System received particular official recognition in section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991.” Section ninety-five requires that the home secretary must annually publish such information he or she may consider useful in demonstrating police performance in their duty to avoid discriminating against someone on the grounds of sex, race, age, religion or gender. “To some extent this has helped in the identification of possible biases within the system. But so far there is little sign that it has brought about any diminution in the actual occurrence of bias.”[ CITATION Cav13 \l 2057 ] Furthermore, another example of policies introduced in order to try and reduce discrimination (and it could be argued, bias) in the Criminal Justice System, more recently, would include the Lammy Report. The Lammy Report was introduced by previous prime-minister David Cameron on January 31st 2016 and is named after Member of Parliament David Lammy, who

Georgia Benjamin Trials and Errors: was asked by Mr. Cameron to investigate evidence of possible bias against black and ethnic minority citizens within the Criminal Justice System. The report displayed that twenty five percent of prison population was occupied by minority races compared to the fourteen percent of ethnic minority citizens that occupy the United Kingdom, meaning this is evidently not representative of the population in wider society. This is due to the fact that “over nine out of ten people in England and Wales are white”[ CITATION San12 \l 2057 ]. Moreover, the report so far has found that fourty percent of black and ethnic minority citizens occupy that of youth prisons, twenty four percent of black and ethnic minority individuals make up a disproportionate amount of Crown Court defendants and those who are found guilty are five percent more likely to receive a custodial sentence than white offenders. Furthermore, included in the report are concerns with the ‘police gang’s matrix’. The gang’s matrix is a list, created by police officers, compiling names of citizens in which the police have suspected are members of a gang or ‘at risk’ of being a member of a gang. The matrix has proven to be found very influential in the criminal justice system in terms of a jury’s decision making, with many people represented on the list being more likely to receive a sentence or even given a harsher sentence. Significance of the gang’s matrix in relation to bias in the criminal justice system lies in the overwhelmingly large proportion of ethnic minority groups represented. “In November 2014 the Met police disclosed information on the ethnic composition of its ‘Gangs Matrix’ or database, showing that no fewer than 78.2 percent of 3,422 persons then included were classified as black and a further 8.7 percent from other ethnic minorities.” [ CITATION Bri15 \l 2057 ] The conclusion of this report is yet to be released, pending spring 2017. Until then it cannot be certain of the outcome; however, it could be said that the introduction of the report is compelling enough evidence to suggest that there remains bias in the Criminal Justice System. These very current implications on policy give strong indications that the level of bias in the Criminal Justice System remains, so much so that even in the current year, there are still legislations being put forward in order to prevent this. In addition, added to the list of polices implemented for the purpose of reducing bias in the Criminal Justice System are the policies introduced in order to govern police powers of stop and search. Powers of stop and search are a very prominent issue with regards to the levels of bias found in the Criminal Justice System. This is because they are responsible, through these arrests, for every member of society who enters the system. It is because of this that it could be argued that the powers of stop and search are held liable for every form of bias found in the system, whether it be age, gender, class, race or religion. However, “in the case of every stop and search power, black and Asian people are greatly over-represented in those searched, so this would largely be a problem of racial discrimination. For example, according to the government, a black person is just over seven times (and an Asian person 2.2 times) more likely to experience a reasonable suspicion stop and search than a white person.” [ CITATION San12 \l 2057 ] It is because of this that The Police and Criminal Evidence Act was introduced in order to govern police powers of stop and search. In addition to this, the Act was also implemented “in response to a series of public scandals” [ CITATION Row14 \l 2057 ] this was a backlash of “the over-

Georgia Benjamin Trials and Errors: representation of many BME communities in stop and search practises has been apparent in ethnic monitoring data that have been compiled since the early 1990’s. The over-policing of black, and more recently Asian communities – especially young males – in terms of their experience of stop and search is stark.” [ CITATION Row14 \l 2057 ] It could be argued that there is an apparent rise in the number of black and ethnic minority groups in prisons simply because they commit more crime, but the evidence for this is absent. This would therefore infer that there is a significant level of bias in the early stages of the Criminal Justice System, whereby suspects are detected and detained, with regards to the ethnicity of the individual. Class bias is also often found in the Criminal Justice System with an overwhelmingly large proportion of prisoners being working class, unskilled or unemployed. This includes 82% of prisoners occupying manual labour. This could be argued that there is a level of bias in terms of detection and sentencing when the suspected perpetrator is of a certain social class. Moreover it might be worth mentioning that an overwhelmingly large proportion of judges in British court cases are middle class white males. This is significant with regards to social status in the Criminal Justice System as it is seemingly impossible for judges to maintain legitimacy in the courts if they do not show an accurate representation of wider society. For example, the purpose of having twelve randomly selected jurors in court is to maintain diversity in the criminal justice system; however, if the majority of judges are middle class men than this cannot be achieved. In addition to this, it has also been made apparent that “The evidence we have of the political orientations of police officers suggests that they tend to be conservative, politically and morally. Partly this is due to the nature of the job, The routine ‘clients’ of the police are drawn from the bottom layers of the social order” [ CITATION Rei102 \l 2057 ] This evidently implies that the majority of police officers also are still from a more middle class background and continue to hold prejudices against their working class ‘clients’. From this we can conclude that after the initial ‘stop and search’ stage is completed, there also exists a level of bias involved in police interviews, alongside sentencing in the courts. Moreover, gender is a more rising issue in the Criminal Justice System as we see more women entering the system now in the twenty-first century than ever before. Problems regarding females in the Criminal Justice System involve the over-punishment based on sex as well as the under-punishment that women receive once they have been tried for a criminal offence. For example, “The so-called ‘chivalry hypothesis’ that is, that the police, courts and other agencies extend greater leniency towards all women – has been disputed by most empirical studies. Instead there is evidence to suggest that the opposite is true: that some female offenders and delinquents may be ‘doubly punished’, both for breaking the law and transgressing their gender roles.” [ CITATION Car141 \l 2057 ] For example such was the case involving “terrible appeals involving sudden infant deaths, such as those of Angela Canning’s and Sally Clark, where women have been victims of miscarriages of justice, their mothering called into question.” [ CITATION Ken05 \l 2057 ]. With this being said it is also apparent that there is a large under-representation of women in the Criminal Justice System, even despite the growing number of female populations in prison, still only 5% of all prison population in Britain are women. This could be a result of the ‘chivalry hypothesis’ or a result of less women committing crime than men. This is made

Georgia Benjamin Trials and Errors: apparent in recent statistics which demonstrate that 26% of women in custody have no previous convictions compared to the 12% in custody for men. In conclusion, whilst it could be argued that some of the issues raised in the initial part of this essay are not contemporary examples of legislature put forward in order to reduce the amount of bias in the Criminal Justice System, for example, the introduction of the sexual discriminations act in 1975 and the equal pay act in 1970, it is still crucial to consider the more recent policies implanted in order to uphold or maintain these equalities, for example the Lammy report, involving investigations into the treatment of minority populations in the United Kingdom was put forward this current year. Moreover, in my investigation into the different examples of discriminatory groups, including race, gender and class it is evident that again in recent years bias is still apparent amongst different social groups. This is demonstrated with the poor treatment of the working class and ethnic minorities. I therefore believe it could be argued that there is still bias in every stage of the Criminal Justice System, starting with the use of stop and search and the need for the Police and Crime Evidence Act, including charges by the police, and police interviews (when discovering the working class are common ‘clients’ of the police), court verdicts, sentencing decisions - whereby the overwhelmingly large proportion of judges in Britain are middle class white men - and also including prison population which are presenting a large under-representation of women and a large over – representation of working class men.

References Bridges, L. (2015, April 9). THE MET GANGS MATRIX - INSTITUTIONAL RACISM IN ACTION. Retrieved from Institute of race relations: http://www.irr.org.uk/news/themet-gangs-matrix-institutional-racism-in-action/ Carrabine, E., Cox, P., Fussey, P., Hobbs, D., South, N., Thiel, D., & Turton, J. (2014). Criminology: A Sociological Introduction. New York: Routledge. Cavadino, Michael, Dignam, & James. (2013). Bias in the criminal justice system. London: Sage. Kennedy , H. (2005, March 10). Why is the criminal justice system still skewed against women? . Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/mar/10/ukcrime.gender McLaughlin, E., & Muncie, J. (2013). The SAGE Dictionary of Criminology. SAGE Publications LTD. Reiner, R. (2010). The Politics of the Police. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rowe, M. (2014). Introduction to Policing. London: SAGE Publications. Sanders, A., Young, R., & Burton, M. (2012). Criminal Justice . New York: Oxford University Press....