Race, law and the state

Race and Class

Volumn 43, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 61-75

  Bridges, Lee ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035538589     PISSN: 03063968     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0306396801432005     Document Type: Review

References (29)

1. The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (London, Stationery Office, 1999) Cm 4264-I.
2. Ibid., para. 6.34.
3. M. Fitzgerald, 'Ethnic minorities and community safety', in R. Matthews and J. Pitts (eds), Crime Disorder and Community Safety (London, Routledge, 2001).
4. Lawrence Inquiry, op. cit., para. 45.7.
5. Ibid., para. 6.45.
6. Ibid., para. 45.24.
7. Ibid., para. 45.27.
8. Ibid., para. 6.24.
9. Ibid., para. 6.45(b).
10. Ibid., paras. 45.8-45.10.
11. Ibid., Recommendation 60.
12. These powers are contained in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which itself replaced earlier provisions relating to 'suspicious persons' that had proved controversial when used against black people.
13. Under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1984.
14. Under section 8 of the Knives Act 1997 and section 25 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.
15. Joel Miller, Nick Bland and Paul Quinton, The Impact of Stops and Searches on Crime and the Community (London, Home Office Police Research Series Paper 127, 2000), p. v.
16. Ibid., pp. 10-11.
17. Ibid., pp. v-vi.
18. MVA and Joel Miller, Profiling Populations Available for Stops and Searches (London, Home Office Police Research Series Paper 131, 2000).
19. The concept is drawn from the 'left realist' criminologist, Jock Young. See, in particular, his study, Policing the Streets: stop and search in North London (London, Middlesex University Centre for Criminology, 1994).
20. The example is drawn from Young, ibid., and quoted in Paul Quinton, Nick Bland and Joel Miller, Police Stops, Decision-making and Practice (London, Home Office Police Research Series Paper 130, 2000), another of the government-commissioned studies that followed publication of the Macpherson report.
21. Lawrence Inquiry, op. cit., paras. 18.15 and 18.19.
22. Profiling Populations, op. cit., p. vii.
23. Criminal Justice: the way forward (London, Home Office, 2001).
24. Ibid., pp. 20-1. This is in the context of declining conviction rates, with the percentage of recorded crimes resulting in a conviction falling from 18 per cent in 1980 to just 9 per cent in 1999-2000. It should also be noted that the target is set in terms not of an increase in the number of offenders to be convicted but, rather, the number of offences where someone will be brought to justice. The latter is defined to include not only criminal convictions but also police cautions and offences being 'taken into account' at the point of sentencing. In other words, the target could be met without any significant increase in the number of persons convicted but by simply convicting similar numbers as at present for more offences or having these additional offences taken into account on conviction.
25. Ibid., p. 19.
26. In one study, it was shown that all the black defendants who pleaded guilty following an election for jury trial did so to reduced charges, and that in 75 per cent of the remaining cases in the sample the black defendants were either acquitted or had all the charges against them dropped by the prosecution. Overall, twenty-four of the twenty-seven black defendants who chose jury trial were either acquitted (one on appeal) or were convicted on reduced charges following guilty pleas. See Lee Bridges, Satnam Choongh and Mike McConville, Ethnic Minority Defendants and the Right to Elect Jury Trial (London, Commission for Racial Equality, 2000).
27. The research is reviewed in ibid.
28. Hansard, HL (20 September 2000), col. 1031.
29. These changes may include greater requirements on the defence to disclose elements of its case, including lists of witnesses, in advance; widening the circumstances in which a defendant's previous convictions may be introduced at trial; altering the test on admissibility of evidence so that that obtained by defective procedures is not automatically excluded; and possible abandonment of the 'double jeopardy'