A Fair Hearing?

by Shute; Stephen

• ISBN13: 9781843920847
• ISBN10: 1843920840
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-05-01
• Publisher: Willan

Summary

This book is based in research which investigated the experiences of ethnic minority, as well as white, defendants and witnesses in the criminal courts. It examines in particular the extent to which black and Asian people who had appeared in both the Crown Court and the magistrates' courts perceived their treatment to have been unfair, whether they believed any unfairness to have been the result of ethnic bias, and whether this had affected their confidence in the criminal courts. The study was carried out by the Oxford Centre for Criminological Research in association with the University of Birmingham for the Lord Chancellor's Department (now the Department for Constitutional Affairs. It involved observations of cases and interviews with more than a thousand people (defendants, witnesses, barristers, solicitors, judges, magistrates and others), and focused on courts in Manchester, Birmingham and London.A Fair Hearing? Ethnic minorities in the criminal courts begins by showing how widely held the belief has been that ethnic minorities are discriminated against by the courts and by other agencies in the criminal justice system. It discusses the factors that contributed to this belief, especially the large over-representation of black people in prison.The main part of the book then looks at the institutional setting in which the research took place, the experience of defendants and witnesses, their views about how they were treated by the criminal courts, and the views of others involved in the court process. Final chapters address the issue of sensitivity to ethnicity on the part of judges, magistrates and lawyers. It shows that attitudes and practices are perceived to have changed for the better and examines what more needs to be done to increase the confidence that members of ethnic minorities have in the fairness of the criminal courts.

Author Biography

Florence Seemungal is a Research Associate at the Oxford University Centre for Criminology.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
1 Equal justice in a multi-cultural society	1	(15)
Perceptions of fairness	1	(1)
Mounting concerns	2	(4)
The search for empirical evidence	6	(4)
How do ethnic minority citizens experience the courts?	10	(4)
The need for a new study	14	(2)
2 Researching perceptions	16	(16)
Some necessary conceptual distinctions	16	(2)
Getting at the issue	18	(3)
The fieldwork	21	(4)
Some possible biases	25	(3)
Obtaining views from other participants	28	(2)
Plan of analysis	30	(2)
3 Perceptions of fairness: a quantitative assessment	32	(10)
Unfairness of any kind: the defendant's perspective	32	(3)
The extent of perceived racial bias	35	(4)
The views of black defendants	39	(2)
The views of Asian defendants	41	(1)
Conclusion	41	(1)
4 Perceiving racial bias	42	(19)
Inequitable sentencing	42	(9)
The conduct of the judiciary	51	(4)
The performance of lawyers	55	(2)
Probation officers and pre-sentence reports	57	(1)
The conduct of security staff	58	(1)
The language of the court	59	(1)
Conclusion	59	(2)
5 Perceptions of unfairness in context	61	(10)
Personal characteristics	61	(1)
Acquittal	62	(1)
Previous experience of criminal courts	62	(1)
The sentence imposed	63	(1)
Ethnic composition of the courts	64	(6)
Response bias?	70	(1)
6 A question of confidence	71	(8)
Confidence in equal treatment	71	(3)
Fairness of treatment compared with previous occasions	74	(1)
Current experience: its impact on confidence	74	(5)
7 The views of informed observers: court officials and lawyers	79	(13)
What court staff observed	79	(3)
What did lawyers perceive?	82	(9)
Conclusion	91	(1)
8 The judicial and magisterial perspective	92	(13)
The views of Crown Court judges	92	(6)
The views of magistrates	98	(7)
9 The experiences of witnesses	105	(3)
10 A 'cultural change'?	108	(9)
A judicial perspective	108	(3)
Magisterial perceptions	111	(3)
Experiences of advocates	114	(2)
Conclusion	116	(1)
11 What still needs to be done?	117	(17)
Defendants' views	117	(3)
The views of witnesses	120	(1)
The views of court staff	121	(1)
The views of lawyers	122	(4)
Suggestions from the judiciary	126	(1)
Suggestions from magistrates	127	(2)
In conclusion	129	(5)
Appendix: Interview Schedule for Defendants	134	(17)
Bibliography	151	(4)
Index	155