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Background
to the
Research
- Research suggests the relationship
between ethnic minorities and the police is problematic.
- Recent comparative data
from Great Britain, NI and the Republic of Ireland are examined in
order to test this view.
Research
Approach
- The authors analysed data which focused
on ethnic responses to the power of the police in dealing with known
criminals drawn from the International Social Survey Programme - Role
of Government II Survey 1990. Multiple regression analysis was used
to analyse the data.
Main
Findings
- Catholics in NI are significantly less
likely to approve of police detention/surveillance methods than their
Protestant counterparts.
- Occupying minority status in the Republic
of Ireland leads Protestants to an opposite interpretation and they
are more likely to approve of such methods.
- No significant association emerged in
GB between individuals of differing racial origins. Although, as in
the case of Catholics in NI, minority group members within this society
were also somewhat more likely to hold a negative view of police detention/surveillance
tactics than white people in GB.
- The results clearly show that ethnic minority
status does not operate in any consistent manner in its effect on
attitudes towards the powers of the police.
- The value of ethnic minority status in
predicting attitudes to police powers when in a multiple regression
analysis is less important than some other socio-demographic and political
factors.
- There is little support for the common
knowledge that 'race' or 'ethnicity' structures people's reaction
towards the police.
- Only in NI does the variable of ethnic
minority status act in accordance with expectations that this status
is associated with negative attitudes towards the powers of the police.
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