Racial Harassment

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Racial Harassment

• Facts taken from material produced by the
  Commission for Racial Equality
• www.cre.gov.uk

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Victims

• 15 of attacks and violence against Asian people
  were seen as racially motivated.
• Only 1 of attacks against White people were
  racially motivated.

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Quotation

• The proportions of BCS respondents from each
  ethnic group who said they had experienced one or
  more racially motivated offences during 1995 were
  8 of Pakistanis, 5 of Indians significantly
  up by 2 since 1993 and 4 of Caribbeans to 1
  of white people

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How do you know it is racist?

• 69 of victims of threats who were certain that
  the offence was racially motivated gave the use
  of racist language as their reason for believing
  this.

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How many racist offences?

• In 1996 there were 382,000 offences (or just over
  2 of all offences reported to the British Crime
  Survey in 1995)

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Non-reporting

• Ethnic minority victims do not usually report
  crimes against them.
• Only 29 of crimes reported to sociologists had
  been reported to the police.

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Where is racism the worst?

• London experiences high levels of racist crime.
• Other cities have high levels of racist
  victimisation

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Racism in Wales
1996 1997
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What types of crime?

• 21 of all racial incidents involved assaults and
  2 were serious crimes against the person.

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Fear

• 49 of attacks against people of Pakistani origin
  involved the use of a knife or other weapon.

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Forms of racism
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Who is racist?

• The people who are racist range from very young
  children to old aged pensioners.

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Gender

• 80 of racist offences were committed by men and
  20 by females.

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Types of offences
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Guilt of offenders?

• Most defendants (64) pleaded guilty, and the
  overall conviction rate including not guilty
  pleas was 83.

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Findings from a report
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Punishment?

• Only 39 of those attacks reported resulted in
  the conviction of an offender for racism.

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How does the law view racism?

• Racially aggravated offences will attract
  sentences up to two years
• higher than the existing offences if it can be
  proved that the defendant demonstrated racial
  hostility.

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Problems caused by racism

• In areas where there are racist attacks, everyone
  is more afraid to go out at night, not just
  people of ethnic minority groups.

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The End

• Look at the CRE website see publications and
  then fact sheets for more information.