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The criminal justice system's drugs policy is heavily biased against black people, research appears to show. Photograph: Toby Melville/PA
The criminal justice system's drugs policy is heavily biased against black people, research appears to show. Photograph: Toby Melville/PA

Black people six times more likely to face drug arrest

This article is more than 13 years old
Race bias in drug arrests or convictions is worse than in US, new research claims

Black people are six times more likely to be arrested than white people for drug offences and 11 times more likely to be imprisoned, according to new research claiming to show the racial bias of the criminal justice system.

Although there is no evidence that black people use or deal drugs more than white people, the study reveals that the ethnic group was much more likely to be targeted.

In the US, research shows black people are three times more likely than white people to be arrested and 10 times more likely to be jailed for drugs offences.

Professor Alex Stevens, of the school of social policy, sociology and social research at the University of Kent, said his analysis of recent Ministry of Justice data highlighted disturbing trends. He said: "The disparity in arrest and imprisonment rates for drug offences between white and black people in England and Wales is even greater than has been calculated for the US."

Stewart said that only the decriminalisation of drug use would neuter such apparently discriminatory policies. "Criminalisation of illicit drugs reinforces social and ethnic inequalities. Decriminalisation of drug use would help to reduce these inequalities," he added.

His analysis, contained in his new book Drugs, Crime and Public Health, found that fewer than two in 1,000 white people were arrested for drug offences in 2007 to 2008, compared with more than 10 in 1,000 black people. In terms of imprisonment, the rates varied from 0.1 in 1,000 white people to 1.1 in 1,000 black people, meaning that black people in England and Wales are 6.1 times more likely to be arrested and 11.4 times more likely to be jailed. for drug offences than white people. Black people were also 9.2 times more likely to be stopped and searched for drug offences.

Stewart added: "This differential enforcement of drug laws contributes substantially to the over-representation of black people in prison in England and Wales." He said around a quarter of the people serving sentences for drug offences were of African or Caribbean origin, although only 2.2% of the population aged over 10 are categorised as belonging to that ethnic group. The research found that Asian people were two times more likely to be arrested and 3.1 times more likely to be imprisoned than white people for drug offences.

Explaining the "apparent discrimination" by attributing higher levels of drug taking between ethnic groups was wrong, Stewart said, referring to research from the British Crime Survey that suggested black people are no more likely than white people to report using illicit drugs, and that black people have a lower rate of use of class A substances.

"If there is racism in the police, then we need to ask why that is. The confluence of race and class makes it very hard to examine any 'independent' effect of being black on the likelihood of harsher treatment," he said.

A Home Office spokesman said that race was not a factor in decision-making, except in cicrcumstances when specific intelligence was involved before arrest.

Concerns over racial bias in the criminal justice system surfaced last week when the country's first black Rastafarian solicitor said his career and reputation had been ruined after he found himself in court facing a possible jail sentence. Jeffrey Atkinson, a respected Birmingham lawyer, was found not guilty by a jury of charges of conspiracy to obtain passports by deception, but he alleged a white solicitor may not have been charged in the same circumstances.

Stewart's findings are part of this week's conference by the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, the group set up by Professor David Nutt, the former government advisor sacked by the Home Office last year for his comments on cannabis policy.

The committee will reveal new research that claims to have significant implications for current drugs policy. The government is currently reviewing its approach to drugs amid growing calls for decriminalisation by several influential figures.

This article was amended on 6 November 2010 to correct the name of Professor Alex Stevens.

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