Racial Crime: Minors and a linient law?
We are living in a time where, people rather than being inclusive are becoming more isolated and separate. Such an atmosphere not only results in walls between societies but also in hatred for among people. Crimes emanating from a racial hate is one of the worst consequences.
London has seen its fair share of the racial crime in the past few years but what is astonishing is, the number of the minors (below 18 years) who have been involved in racial crimes over the past 5 years (2011–15). Not only minors have been suspected of being involved in the crime but also have been victims of racially motivated crime themselves.
According to statistics provided by the Metropolitan police, there has been a steady increase in the number of the victims (minors) from 2011 to 2015. The number of victims kept fluctuating in the 400s from 2011 to 2013, but shot up to more than 600 in 2015.
More number of victims gives rise to more number of suspects. But what is surprising is the number of people proceeded against by the police or in layman terms, the suspects who have been charged with the offence. In 2015 the number of suspects stood at 1300 while in the same year the number of people against whom the police proceeded against was at a lowly 130. Why such a disparity?
“It is difficult and a time consuming duty to gather proof to arrest a suspect,” said a Islington police officer. In the area of Canonbury in Islington racial crimes has been tormenting the locals. “In the case of minors, there is a problem of witnesses as many may not come forward to testify”, said Alan Johnson, an Islington local. “Maybe because of their young age they get away,” he added.
Such statements give rise to a question, is the law going easy on minors? Would the conviction rate be more if it were adults rather than young kids? In countries such as India, there are examples where the law has been lenient on minors for grave offences. Is the law in London taking a similar path?
Another stat which has to be taken into notice is the total number of victims in each of the boroughs in London. In most of the cases, there has been an increase in the number in the year of 2015. Hillingdon in particular, which saw 21 victims in 2014, had nearly double the number of victims in 2015. Also, when adding all the years from 2011 to 2015, Hillingdon has the highest number of victims which is 151.
On asking some of the locals in the area, I got to know that some are not living happy lives in the borough due as they suffer racial abuse almost everyday. I interviewed a kebab store owner, Mohan (name changed on request), who gave me an account of his encounter with racial abuses which goes a long to justifying the big number of racial crime victims in the borough.
The owner keeps the store open till late nights. According to his account, young kids who come to buy some stuff racially abuse him quite often. “They just come inside the store to mock me and racially abuse me,” said Mohan. “I don’t know why, is it because of my skin or the way I talk?,” he added.
Mohan is not the only one. There are many others who are going through the same problem.
One of the questions which does arise from this is the way the new generation and the youth are being brought up. Are they the result of the divisive society we are living in?
If we have to talk about racially motivated crime then, even racial abuse is a crime. “One of the major problems is that most of the racial abuse cases aren’t reported,” said Aabha Gupta, a student staying in Newington Green who faced racial abuse. It seems that racial abuses have become such a regular part of life that hardly the cases get reported.
It is not unless someone is killed or injured that a case of racially motivated crime gets reported. Racial abuse is the first step towards a more harsher crime. If the problem is not taken care of at its infant stage then we might have to deal with graver cases of racial crimes in the future.
The problem what is being seen is that in the case of minors, the law and the people are being very cautious, a little too cautious for the liking. This surely wouldn’t have been the case if adults were committing the same crime. When it comes to minors, they are careful in dealing with them on grounds of the fact they are young and naive. But, after hearing the stories of people suffering abuse on a daily basis, the laws have to be strengthened and those accused should be given hefty penalties.
There has been many reports of racial crimes especially after the Brexit vote has taken place. If 2015 was bad then the data of 2016 will even be worse. Minors especially are living in the riskiest of times. They are seeing a society which is getting divided day by day.
The law enforcement must have a big role to play here. Their process for gathering information and proof to arrest suspects must be sped up. The disparity number of suspects and the people proceeded against by the police paint a worrying picture for the law enforcement. Serious criminal offences should be dealt with as fast possible, regardless of the fact who is involved, be it a minor or an adult.
Data set Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lpsZ_d6ml6pE_e2jiSXw-sXRLyJo6Psneb_i5bwkf78/edit#gid=1070979229
Tableau visualisation link: https://public.tableau.com/profile/publish/RacialVictims/Sheet1#!/publish-confirm
*The places marked in dark grey doesn’t give any information as no statistics were provided by the Metropolitan police for those boroughs.
