John Woods
Dissects an unsatisfactory Home Office study of race and crime

I acquired recently a copy of a 1999 Home Office publication entitled Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System: A Home Office publication under Section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991*. The 1999 edition is the fifth in a series, with previous reports issued in 1992, 1994, 1995 and 1997. This remarkable study makes for a most interesting read.

First, you have to wade through the statutory foreword by Jack Straw telling us that we must learn the lessons of the Macpherson report, and purge the criminal justice system of "institutional racism". Then we have another foreword by Mr Justice Rose, Chairman of the Criminal Justice Consultative Committee, stating that we must learn the lessons of the Macpherson Report and purge the criminal justice system of "institutional racism". Then we have an insert from the Commission for Racial Equality telling us that we must learn the lessons of the Macpherson Report and purge the criminal justice system of "institutional racism".

Then we have a discussion on deaths of black people in police custody. Then we are told that blacks are six times more likely to be stopped and searched by police. Then we are told that racist incidents are up by 66% over the last year, "although this is thought to be due to better reporting". Then we have the usual breast-beating about how there are not enough black policemen, prison officers, magistrates or judges. Then we are told that 9% of homicide victims in the UK in the period covered by the survey (1996-99) were black, an over-representation by a factor of four and a half (although we are not told who committed these murders.)

And then - finally - buried half way down Table 7.5 on page 44, we get some real figures. 'Res ipsa loquitor', as they doubtless say in Brixton police station canteen. Bear in mind that 2% of the population of the UK is classified as black. The figures are stark: as of 30th June 1998, 7.1% of those serving prison sentences for burglary were black. The equivalent figure for theft and handling is 7.5%, for sexual offences 8.1%, violence against the person 9.7%, fraud and forgery 13.2% and drugs offences 19%, while for robbery it is a staggering 22.6%. Now, the massive over-representation of blacks in these categories, could, I am sure, be 'explained' by reference to "institutional racism". There will no doubt be many who hold that these are the only career options open to black youths. But I defy even Lord Macpherson to explain, for example, a four-fold over-representation in sex crimes among blacks by reference to that meaningless concept. Perhaps wisely, the Home Office does not give us a breakdown of the racial origins of the victims of black sexual crime.
I would also be interested in seeing the figures for juveniles convicted of sexual offences.

Moreover, virtually every Asian ethnic group within the UK is under-represented in the jails - except in fraud cases. The incarceration rate for Indians is one fourteenth of the black rate. Yet, presumably, Asians must be labouring under the same yoke of societal "institutional racism" as blacks? Furthermore, if we are to explain the six-fold over-representation of blacks in prison by reference to that elastic concept, and we note the fact that whites are over-represented in prison in comparison with Asians, then the logical conclusion would seem to be that the criminal justice system must be "institutionally racist" against whites.
But that would be an absurd conclusion.

Blacks represent 2% of the population of the UK, 12% of the jail population and 15% of incarcerated young offenders. Even this, however, does not tell the full story, as the figures do not distinguish between Africans and Afro-Caribbeans. It may be an hypothesis too far, but I would be prepared to wager that the following propositions are true: that the proportion of blacks of African origin incarcerated, although significantly larger than the percentage of whites or Asians, will be significantly smaller than the proportion of Afro-Caribbeans. Therefore the over-representation among Afro-Caribbeans will be even more extraordinary than these figures would suggest. I suspect also that the sociological profile of the type of crime for which Africans are imprisoned will be rather different than that for Afro-Caribbeans. Astoundingly, blacks are over-represented by a factor of six or seven among those incarcerated for fraud and forgery. I suspect that the majority of these will be West Africans rather than West Indians.

Massaging the figures

But the real story here is the way that the Home Office has presented the figures. The statistics would appear to have been set out in a deliberately misleading, confusing and obfuscatory manner, designed to prevent the casual reader from working out the true situation. One has to wade through reams of information on arrest rates in the various county police forces, where very few members of ethnic minorities reside, and the figures for the Met., the West Midlands etc, are buried among them. It is not terribly meaningful to tell us that 99% of those arrested by Dyfed-Powys or Devon & Cornwall Police are white. Moreover, the percentages of arrests for the various different ethnic groups within a particular police area are not compared with the actual ethnic breakdown of the population within that area, except for the Metropolitan Police District and a few others. And these are presented several pages apart, perhaps in the hope that no-one will notice them.

The picture in London

According to the Home Office figures, 7.5 % of the population of London are black. A quarter of all the arrests in the Metropolitan Police District are of black people. As relatively few blacks live in suburban areas of London, I would suggest that they must now represent a majority, or close to it, in arrests in almost every category of crime in the inner London boroughs. Blacks represent 54% of those arrested for robbery in London. In the inner city, this must surely be 80-90%. Again, the race of the victims of these robberies is not recorded. I wonder why not.

Another jaw-dropping statistic: during the period 1996-1999 which this survey covers, 59 black people and 69 white people died from gunshot wounds. The chances of a black person being shot dead are therefore approximately 40 times higher than for a white person. In virtually every case, blacks who died of gunshot wounds were shot by other blacks.

"Racially motivated incidents"

On page 47 of this extraordinary document, one finds another startling statistic relating to "racially motivated incidents". The British Crime Survey, published in 1998, estimates that in 1995, 382,000 offences were racially motivated. Of these, 143,000 were committed against members of ethnic minorities, and 238,000 against white people. This fact is extraordinary enough in itself. More extraordinary still is the lack of further discussion given to it in this report. And of course, the Home Office is not indelicate enough to point out the obvious corollary: if the ethnic minorities comprise 6% of the population of the UK, and are producing 238,000 racial assaults per year, and the white population, who comprise 94% of the population, are producing 143,000 racial assaults per year, it would appear that, on a per capita basis, the ethnic minorities are producing about 25 times more racial assaults than the white population. In fact, this clearly underestimates the discrepancy, since some of the racial assaults against blacks will have been committed by Asians, and some (I would guess a lot) of the assaults on Asians will have been committed by blacks (like the murderous attack on Abdul Bhatti at Notting Hill). Moreover, the British Crime Survey does not tell us who committed the 238,000 racial assaults against whites. I think we may safely assume that the majority were not committed by Sikhs, Parsees, Thais or Hong Kong Chinese.
Obviously, certain caveats must be borne in mind. What constitutes a racial assault? If two motorists of different pigmentations get into an altercation over a parking space, does this constitute a racial incident? If one of them employs racial epithets in the course of the dispute, does it then become one? Fortunately, we now know what constitutes a racial assault, because Macpherson's definition has been accepted by the Government, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, and is reproduced in this document. "A racial incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person". So, if 238,000 white people per year perceive themselves to have been the victims of racist crimes, then they must have been, mustn't they?

Missing the point

On page 15 of the Home Office document, we are told "Much (sic) of these differences were found to be due to socio-demographic factors that are associated with victimisation. For example, ethnic minorities tend, on average, to be younger, of lower socio-economic status, and more often living in higher risk areas". This is an exercise in deliberately missing the point. Certain ethnic minorities - Indians and Chinese, for example - have an average social status which is significantly higher than that of whites, and a crime rate which is approximately half the national average. It is only blacks who are of a significantly lower average social status. And, of course, the Home Office statisticians do not address themselves to the question of why this should be. Blacks certainly do live in higher risk areas. They are higher risk areas for a very good reason. But then the whole document is an exercise in deliberately missing the point. Almost every civil servant, policeman, judge, prosecutor and journalist is busily missing the point these days, busily pretending that the emperor has got some clothes on, because in Tony's Britain, that's how you keep your job.

The reality of the situation is simply too horrific for liberals to contemplate. Therefore, they choose not to contemplate it, preferring to scapegoat the police, or the judiciary, or the schools, or anyone or anything else, rather than face the facts. Unfortunately, however much we might all wish it, reality will not go away.

John Woods writes from Hertfordshire
* Copies of Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System can be obtained by writing to:
Information & Publications Group,
Room 201, 50 Queen Anne's Gate, London, SW1H 9AT.
Telephone: 020 7273 2084 Fax: 020 7222 0211
E-mail: rds.ho@gtnet.gov.uk
The report can also be obtained from the following web address:
www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/index.htm

My immediate reaction to the news that Islamic terrorists had carried out a series of atrocities in London was to hurl politically-incorrect abuse at the radio, followed by traditional Anglo-Saxon expletives and a period of sustained two-fingered gestures. Fortunately, the Home Office has not implemented recommendation 391 of the Macpherson Report, otherwise MI5 would have been bugging my house and yours truly would have been dragged off to prison as an ‘enemy of the people’. When I calmed down I realised that while my reaction towards the devils who had murdered some 55 people in London was entirely wholesome and normal, others deserve loathing and contempt as well. The real culprits here are the multicultural extremists, who over the last 30 years or more have peddled their hatred of the West and white people, so preparing the way for acts of terrorism. These are the same people who have been responsible for the Soviet-style rewriting of our history, the corrupting effects of ‘anti-racism’ and feminism on our language and the multiple failures to deal with the immigrant invasion.

They have consistently sought to undermine our ability psychologically, morally and intellectually to resist the tyranny of multiculturalism. It started with trifling things: banning golliwogs on jars; blackboards became chalkboards; teachers proscribed the singing of Ba-ba, Black Sheep; whites had to face up to their colonial past (I have: Africans should stop whining and be grateful).

Our great heroes have been systematically and viciously denigrated; Third-World nonentities and gangsters are lauded. As a consequence, children and adults who know nothing of their own history – and ours is a very great one indeed – are ill-prepared to understand and to resist the ideologically-driven rewriting of history and what it means for the present. Looking to the past can be a great source of comfort, steeling our hearts in adversity and danger. Yet, today, too many adults can derive no succour from their past: it has been stolen from them or trampled underfoot.

The educational establishment generally, and the universities particularly, have inspired and manipulated this neo-Marxist pestilence. Consider that nearly all the repressive, anti-white racist measures we associate with political correctness and multiculturalism started life in universities. The most disturbing thing here is the extent to which academics whose very professional existence depends on the institution of free speech and challenging ideas have colluded with those who want to turn the university into a People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment.

If the West does fall, future historians (will there be any historians?) may well regard the corruption of our universities, their willingness to embrace the revolution of anti-thought, as one of the decisive factors. LOST OF WILL Our political classes have also lost the will to act. This lack of will and a steadfast denial about what has been happening in Britain can be seen in the way in which conservative politicians now queue up to spit at Enoch Powell. Just after the terrorist attacks Boris Johnson tried to persuade readers of the Daily Telegraph that Powell’s “catastrophic 1968 tirade” made it impossible for politicians to talk about immigration and a multiracial society2. This is pure evasion. What stops politicians from talking about immigration and a multiracial society is that too many of them – perhaps these days all of them – lack the courage to stand up and be counted. All three main parties are full of people who either want to impose the multicultural nightmare on Britain, or who harbour reservations, but keep their mouths shut for fear of damaging their careers.

They have an obligation to speak out and they are not doing it. Johnson’s swipe at Powell is especially disgusting because when the outgoing Tory MP, John Townend, attacked multiculturalism during the 2001 general election campaign, it was Boris Johnson, slavishly following the example of Hague, Dorrell and Maude who attacked Townend. The attacks on Britishness, the cause which Johnson now, belatedly, wishes to espouse, were well under way in 2001. Townend’s justified criticism of multiculturalism provided Johnson with the ideal opportunity to make his own opposition known and stand alongside Townend. Politically, Johnson found it more expedient to lay into Townend. Thus Johnson’s blaming Powell is despicable, and his call for reasserting Britishness utterly dishonest, given that he has made his own contribution to undermining Britishness by staying silent when he could have spoken out, and then attacked someone who did speak out.

The time for highlighting the threat of multiculturalism to the integrity of the United Kingdom was not in the aftermath of terrorist attacks – that’s the easy jump-on-the-emotional-bandwagon option – but when the corrosive effects of multiculturalism were demonstrably obvious; and they were there for all to see long before 7 July 2005. Far from being responsible for erecting any taboo on race, it was Enoch Powell who broke the cosy establishment conspiracy of silence regarding race and the consequences of immigrants flooding into this country. Powell warned what would happen, and since the time when Powell issued his warning every attempt has been made to silence and vilify any opposition to multiculturalism. The Islamic terrorist atrocities in London are further evidence that beyond a certain threshold it is simply not possible to accommodate large numbers of immigrants and to preserve the British way of life. Yes, it can be done, after a fashion, but it means the systematic destruction of what we hold dear – our ancient freedoms and customs, monarchy, the-waywe- do-things – so as to compel the white, indigenous majority population to accept something that most of us reject. The only people in Britain who tell you that ‘diversity is our strength’ all live in Cornwall, the Somerset Levels, Hay-on-Wye, Suffolk and Perthshire, a million miles away, in other words, from all that enriching ‘diversity’.

Like we say, ‘Enoch was right’ and that is why the Left and a ‘Conservative’ party, which increasingly resembles a social-democratic rabble, hate him and fear his memory and legacy so much. The turning point for getting utterly ruthless with the cult of multiculturalism should have been immediately after Tuesday, 11 September 2001, not Thursday, 7 July 2005. How many more people will have to die in Islamic terrorist atrocities, how many more generations of British schoolchildren are going to be denied access to their nation’s history, and how many more British institutions will have to be broken and maimed by the People’s Commissariat for Racial Equality before Johnson and his spineless party stop denying the ugly realities of multiculturalism and start fighting back – behaving, in other words, like a loyal opposition, and not frightened lemmings? ‘TIDES OF HISTORY’ Denial regarding multiculturalism takes many forms. One approach, of which Niall Ferguson is an advocate, is to argue that the demographic shifts associated with multiculturalism are inevitable; that they are ‘the tides of history’.

Now multiculturalism is not some immutable law of history to which the indigenous white populations of northern Europe must submit. Let us recall that the ravings of Marx and Lenin about communism’s triumph were once accorded the same status of historical inevitability; that socialism was the wave of the future. This was precisely the Marxist planning fantasy that Friedrich Hayek dissected and exposed as incoherent and inherently totalitarian in The Road to Serfdom (1944). What, I wonder, would Ferguson, surveying Europe in the aftermath of Dunkirk, have told the readers of the Daily Telegraph – that Hitler and national socialism were ‘the tides of history’; that we had better do a deal with the Führer whether we liked it or not? There were some who would have done a deal with Hitler, but the Great Man told them to go to hell. We fought a just war and we won. Churchill, like Powell after him, had a sense of history. We resisted Spain, Napoleon, the Kaiser, Hitler, Stalin and Stalin’s successors. Resistance to multiculturalism requires the same determination. We must address the questions openly, fearlessly, honestly and rationally, and that means that we must refuse to allow ourselves to be intimidated by accusations of racism from white-hating multiculturalists – the real neo-nazis among us – and then we must act, not submit to the self-defeating fatalism articulated by Ferguson and other fainthearts.

The response to the threat of multiculturalism is, in essence, one of political will and the belief that Britain, our great country, warts and all, is worth fighting for. Our political classes either support the cult of multiculturalism or derive benefits from supporting it. These people will never suffer from the policies they inflict on the rest of us. Moreover, I predict that the moment the joys of multiculturalism start to impinge on Ferguson’s life he will abandon his fatalism and start very actively to resist ‘the tides of history’. In America, where Ferguson works, this resistance to ‘the tides of history’ is known, among other things, as white flight. The Islamic terrorist attacks should also herald the formal and total rejection by the Home Office of the Soviet-style Macpherson Report.

Macpherson’s recommendations have demonstrably hampered an aggressive pursuit of black and Asian criminals and severely damaged police morale. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks we heard Sir Ian Blair talking tough, yet what happened on 7 July 2005 has, for the time being, conveniently diverted attention from Blair’s persecution of three police officers. A race inquiry, which has dragged on for nearly six years, was initiated in the Metropolitan Police Service after a female police officer, one Shabnam Chaudhri, complained that Detective Constable Tom Hassell mispronounced the word Shi’ites, as “Shitties”, and that he compared Muslim headgear to tea cosies. She then went on to complain about his remark that he would not want to be “that lot”, a reference to Muslims’ abstention from sex and food during the month of Ramadan. In an echo of the Soviet crime of nedonositel’stvo (failing to denounce an ‘enemy of the people’) she accused the other two officers who were present, Detective Sergeant Colin Lockwood and Detective Inspector Paul Whatmore, of failing to intervene.

Even the employment tribunal concluded that Blair’s main aim was to make an example of the three men so as to parade his anti-racist credentials. The effects of this internal persecution on police morale can only be deeply damaging. Nor is Blair the only senior police officer who bends the knee to the cult of multiculturalism. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick insists that “Islamic and terrorist are two words that do not go together”. Something is horribly wrong with the Macphersonised Metropolitan Police Service. GROUND-BREAKING Enoch Powell was not the only one who sounded the alarm. In the 1980s, based on his own direct professional experience as a headmaster of an inner-city school in Bradford, another fine Englishman warned us what to expect. In a ground-breaking article first published in the Salisbury Review, Ray Honeyford concluded with the following words:

“And I am no longer convinced that the British genius for compromise, for muddling through, and for good-natured tolerance will be sufficient to resolve the inevitable tensions”. On 7 July 2005 we were handsomely rewarded for our tolerance and punished for our failure to keep out the immigrants who came to this country with murder in their ugly, black hearts. Macpherson and his flunkeys in the Macphersonised Met, Trevor Phillips, Bhikhu Parekh and the lesser known race bureaucrats and well-meaning mediocrities owe the sage of Lancashire an unreserved and grovelling apology. Like we say, ‘Enoch was right, so was Ray’.

Macpherson and his flunkeys in the Macphersonised Met, Trevor Phillips, Bhikhu Parekh and the lesser known race bureaucrats and well-meaning mediocrities owe the sage of Lancashire an unreserved and grovelling apology. Like we say, ‘Enoch was right, so was Ray’.