More black people jailed in England and Wales proportionally than in US

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

The proportion of black people in prison in England and Wales is higher than in the United States, a landmark report released today by the Equality and Human Rights Commission reveals.

The commission's first triennial report into the subject, How Fair is Britain, shows that the proportion of people of African-Caribbean and African descent incarcerated here is almost seven times greater to their share of the population. In the United States, the proportion of black prisoners to population is about four times greater.

The report, which aims to set out how to measure "fairness" in Britain, says that ethnic minorities are "substantially over-represented in the custodial system". It suggests many of those jailed have "mental health issues, learning disabilities, have been in care or experienced abuse".

Experts and politicians said over-representation of black men was a result of decades of racial prejudice in the criminal justice system and an overly punitive approach to penal affairs.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/11/black-prison-population-increase-england

---

See also: "Equality report slams divided Britain"

[DonCoquixote]

1. O_U_C_H!

Considering how much Black people are jailed in the US, that stat SUX!

[proteus_lives]

2. I thought one of DU's more popular memes was "Everything in Europe is better."

:eyes:

[nebenaube]

3. I hate to break it to you...

but England is not in Europe!

[virgogal]

4. You have GOT to be kidding !!!!!!!

[ananda]

5. The UK IS in Europe.

And Europe is getting very racist and xenophobic, as is America.
It goes with a sinking economy and more unequal distribution of wealth
and less in the way of safety nets.

[cigsandcoffee]

8. Ever hear of the European Union?

If not, check it out. It's interesting. England's in there!

[classysassy]

18. England is not part of the European mainland

England is in the British islands so is Wales,Ireland and Scotland,there are also smaller islands in the group.Jersey,Man,and the one where the Manx come from.

[AtheistCrusader]

24. Wrong.

"Ireland is separated from Great Britain by a channel of very variable width, the narrowest points being 134 miles between Antrim and Kintire, 234 miles between Down and Wigton, and 47 miles between Wexford and S Wales. The depth of this channel along its centre varies form 45 to 150 fathoms; the deepest and coldest water found along the coast lies off the Antrim shore. This sea-barrier may be contrasted with that which exists between England and France, which narrows to a width of 23 miles and a depth of 20-25 fathoms at the Straits of Dover, widening rapidly northwards into the broad but shallow North Sea, and more gradually southward along the deeper St. George's Channel. It is important to bear in mind that all these waters lie on a broad shelf, which surrounds Great Britain and Ireland (fig. 1). Along the coasts of Scandinavia, of Spain and Portugal, and of Africa the sea-bottom falls rapidly to oceanic depths – 1000 to 2000 fathoms. But if we trace the isobaths of 100 or 200 fathoms northward from the Peninsula, we find they project in a broad curve which passes some 40 miles westward of Ireland, to approach the Continent again on the Norwegian coast. Ireland, like Britain, is essentially a portion of European land, and a slight uplift would re-join both to the Continent."

Ignoring the political boundaries of the European Union, the UK is separated from the mainland by only a water channel. It sits on the same continental shelf, and is indeed part of Europe.

Also I think you, and others, misunderstood the provincial joke in post 3.


http://www.botanicgardens.ie/herb/books/images/fig1.bmp

[proteus_lives]

11. Really?

:rofl:

I mean, really?

:rofl:

[liberation]

13. Most people here, apparently, are not either traveled enough,

or exposed to international POVs to get your remark.

;-)

[cigsandcoffee]

17. Well, fill us poor rubes in, then.

Odds are I'm far more exposed to international travel and POVs than you are or have been, and yet it seemed like just another ignorant remark to me.

[MellowDem]

20. Lots of British people see themselves as distinctly...

seperate from "the Continent", or at least from what I have seen. Still, they are part of Europe, even if they don't like Europe.

[liberation]

29. LOL....

The quip is based on the fairly widespread stereotype that British people for the most part have fairly cold attitudes towards the EU and the rest of the European continent as a whole. You must have missed that little tidbit through all your extensive travel and international experience which I can only dream of achieving one day...

Cheers.

[cigsandcoffee]

30. Right. We're all aware of Europe's petty rivalries.

And they relate to the thread topic in which way?

[Socal31]

21. Uhhh......

Que?

[Fumesucker]

6. In absolute term the number of black people imprisoned would be lower in the UK..

Because we incarcerate a far higher percentage of citizens than does the UK, a near two to one ratio won't overcome the absolute higher percentage of incarcerated overall in the land of the free.

[DeadEyeDyck]

9. that makes no sense....

absolute percentage?

[Fumesucker]

10. There will be a lower percentage of all black people incarcerated in the UK..

Than in the USA even though the percentage of prisoners who are black is higher in the UK.

The subset of prisoners is smaller relative to population in the UK than the US.

That offsets the greater relative percentage of prisoners who are black in the UK.

[MellowDem]

19. Considering what percentages measure...

whether or not more black people overall in the US are imprisoned or not is irrelevant when looking at proportions. So your post makes no sense in relation to the OP.

[Regret My New Name]

31. ,,,,,

blah never mind... too early to think.

[MellowDem]

35. The OP says these are comparisons of the black prison...

population to the black population overall in these respective countries. So if the black prison population is 4 times greater proportionally than the overall black population (something like 13%) in the US, that would make for about 48% or so of the US prision population black. Let's say for the sake of example that the black population in England is 3%. If it is 7 times greater proportionally in prison, that would make the black prison population 21% of the overall prison population. At least, I believe that is what the OP is saying, though I admit I could be reading it wrong.

[liberation]

14. I dunno about that... Intellectual Dishonesty seems to be your fav theme though:

From the article:

"The policies implemented in the last decade mean incarceration levels in Britain are now among the highest in western Europe. England and Wales have an imprisonment rate of 155 per 100,000 and Scotland of 149 per 100,000 of the population. This contrasts with rates of less than 100 per 100,000 for most of Britain's neighbours."

BTW, for context... the incarceration rate in the US is 754 per 100,000. In other words: almost 800% larger than the Western European average. You, apparently, must be proud of that "achievement."

So, even when you try to be pump your passive aggressive condescension, you miss terribly... Having 8 times more people in prison per capita, means that yes... in this case at least Europe is a better society.

[harmonicon]

16. you beat me to it - Europe still wins in this one. Next?!

Oh, shit, I just remembered at what the US is WAY better at; Mexican food and bbq. If it weren't for losing great healthcare, fair-priced prescriptions, a useful transportation infrastructure, and better job prospects, I would move back to the US for the food.

[MellowDem]

23. Depends on where you go in Europe....

or if you're a minority as well. As for the job prospects, not much better. The health care, not good in many EU countries, ditto the transportation infrastructure. You'll want to stay in the richest EU nations. Or you could just look at the richest US states and pretend they are representative of the whole US. But that wouldn't make much sense, would it?

[harmonicon]

26. I still don't think there's a single good place for bbq in Europe.

Maybe Spain has good Mexican food, but I don't know; maybe they have a lot of Mexican immigrants?

As for the EU being a mixed bag, of course it is, and as you point out, so is the US. I live in England, and my life here is what I was referencing; I'm much better off here than I would be if I moved back to the US.

[liberation]

27. As per the last WHO report...

... the vast majority (if not all) of the health care systems in the EU surpassed in ranking the USA.

Also, only the UK has an incarceration rate of over 100 per 100,000. The rest of the EU have significantly lower rates.

Furthermore, you seem to not understand averages and especially its effect in representative distributions, as you seem to be running on empty trying to spin this one out. The worst case scenario, in this case the UK, still puts the USA with over 500% the rate of per capita imprisonment. Again, when it comes to the insane incarceration rates in this country, we're in the same league as Communist China, not the EU. Deal with it.

The richest US State is California, with again a fairly large inmate population, crumbling infrastructure, bad to very poor public transportation in the few cases where it actually exists. So you were saying?

In social services terms we're simply not in the same league, period. Regardless of whatever nonsensical denial fueled red herrings are thrown...

[MellowDem]

40. Actually, that's not quite true...

11 of the thirty EU countries have health care systems ranking below the US according to the last WHO report. Though it would probably more fair to say that 384.8 million people lived in countries ranked higher than the US and 102 million did not, or 80% to 20%. Of course, the EU isn't all of Europe, and generally cherry picks the countries on the best upswing economically. However, if you also look at EU potential member countries, then it would be 385.1 million to 180.2 million, or about 66% to 33%. And if you were to look at Europe as a whole, it would be aboute 400 million to 400 million, or 50/50. And that depends on if you think the WHO of 2000 report is all that good of an indicator of health. The WHO has stopped ranking countries because it is too complicated a practice that basically is impossible to do.

I never posited that the US was better, and neither did the OP, but that seems to be the strawman people want to build. I do think there are a lot of misperceptions about Europe on here, as your post illustrates.

[MellowDem]

22. I love how all the griefers on here...

look at every bad story about a European power to be a pissing contest or some sort of conspiracy involving showing how the US is better. I don't see how the article is intellectually dishonest. The US has a huge prison population. But proportion has nothing to do with that. I think you are being intellectually dishonest in trying to pretend everything is OK by changing the subject to the US, which is what always happens in these threads.

It does make you wonder if Europe was as diverse a society as the US, just how would they be, because just by looking at how they can't seem to handle the little diversity they do have, there does seem to be a big problem there.

[harmonicon]

25. little diversity?

How many languages are spoken just in the UK? Even the small city that I live in is diverse by US standards. Compare that to all of the EU. It's made up of dozens of different cultures and languages. To consider something like "race" in terms of black and white is absolutely absurd in most of these cases. Race is a cultural construct already, so to place American ideas of race onto another culture is a practice that will lead to nowhere. I'm sure most Americans wouldn't understand racist feelings between Slovaks and Hungarians, but that doesn't make them go away.

[MellowDem]

37. However you want to look at diversity...

either racially or culturally, the US is much more diverse than European nations. I don't think language is an indicator for diversity per se, as the US is just much more integrated in this regard. But for the sake of argument, let's look at some statistics of Britain:

Ethnic group Population % of total*
White British 50,366,497 85.67%
White (other) 3,096,169 5.27%
Indian 1,053,411 1.8%
Pakistani 977,285 1.6%
White Irish 691,232 1.2%
Mixed race 677,117 1.2%
Black Caribbean 565,876 1.0%
Black African 485,277 0.8%
Bangladeshi 283,063 0.5%
Other Asian (non-Chinese) 247,644 0.4%
Chinese 247,403 0.4%
Other 230,615 0.4%
Black (others) 97,585 0.2%
* Percentage of total UK population

Even "White (other)" which presumably includes all those other European cultures, is only about 5% of the total population. The US is much more diverse just among its white population in terms of what cultures they come from than Britain is. And if you want to look at race, which, while I understand doesn't have the same implications as in the US, still does have implications, it is also less diverse than the US. And Britain is one of the more diverse EU countries. There are quite a few EU countries that are almost completely homogonous.

[harmonicon]

41. You've missed my point.

These things are cultural constructs, and as stats are meaningless.

[liberation]

28. Wow... hold off the red herring sauce please.

Really, your reading and comprehension of my post led you to believe it was the article itself what I was considering to be "intellectually dishonest?"

Cheers.

[MellowDem]

38. Considering you call the OP

intellectually dishonest for posting that article, I assumed you would think the same of the article... not a red herring at all, and a rather reasonable assumption.

[No Elephants]

34. U.S. bashing from other nations can get old, though. Not as though only perfect nations bash us.

[Dogtown]

32. Citation?

Link?

It seems like you are trying to start your own meme.

It also seems that you frequently complain about what's "popular" on DU. Why is that, p_l?

Why do you post here if you dislike the community so much?

[slackmaster]

42. Except for an occasional little toxic spill, racism, and nationwide strikes

Everything in Europe is just ducky.

We helped the Europeans straighten things out back in 1918, and haven't heard much from them since then.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Liberal_in_LA]

12. tragic

[cowcommander]

15. The UK has the same social problems as the US

It's no utopia, gang violence is also a big problem affecting culture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0QWhei432A

[Lydia Leftcoast]

43. And the UK is the country that has gone farthest in adopting conservative ideas

Funny thing.

Reagan and Thatcher both sent their respective countries on a downhill slide from which neither has recovered.

[Odin2005]

33. I always say that Europe is more racist than the US.

They just hide it better.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

36. While western europe treats most of its white citizens better than US does theirs, their treatment

of POC is absolutely appalling.

[slackmaster]

39. The proper question to ask is whether black vs. white people get the same punishment...

...for the same crimes.