‘More fines for minorities’

POLICING prejudice bias led to minority ethnic groups receiving disproportionately more fines than white Britons during pandemic restrictions, a study has revealed.

Research cited by The Guardian said the police approach “legitimised a differential approach to enforcement that reflected pre-existing biases in policing”.

The biases included beliefs about which types of people were more likely to break the rules and required punishment to secure their compliance.

According to the study, based on interviews with police officers who spoke confidentially to academics from Liverpool University, some officers said there was a belief that certain minority ethnic groups were more likely to defy the rules. But there was nothing to substantiate the generalisation of the behaviour.

Minority ethnic people in England and Wales were almost twice as likely to be fined than white people, national figures showed.

An officer interviewed for the research said he believed the Asian community was more likely to be obstructive and less likely to take the advice.

Liz Turner, a co-author of the report, told the paper, “what we found was suggestive of the likelihood that institutional racism was at work.”

“There was a reversion to a business-asusual mindset, a mindset that the problematic groups more likely to break Covid rules were those groups already viewed with suspicion.”

Turner added, “There is no evidence of ethnic minority groups more visibly flouting the rules than other groups.”

The National Police Chiefs’ Council did not comment on the research findings.