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This Is Worrying From A Criminological Perspective But Also Because The ...

This is worrying from a criminological perspective but also because the police will be less effective. It is clear that new converts are at risk of becoming radicalised when first attracted to the religion; this was seen in the cases of Richard Reid the shoe-bomber, Germaine Lindsay who was involved in the 7th July bombings in London and most recently Don Stewart-Whyte's involvement in the attempted bombing of the trans-Atlantic flights from London to New York.
In the next section we will assess the empirical evidence that we go from doing my own empirical investigation into these issues. However, at this point it is worth just summarising the empirical outcomes that have been expressed above. We have seen how institutional racism, to some extent, is existent within the police. The figures even with a bias built-in still portray a distinctly prejudicial picture however potentially not as discriminatory on black people as other studies have suggested. What are of more interest are the findings that Asians were disproportionately prejudiced and it is of no small consequence that there is a great deal of confusion and prejudice which sees people exhibiting Asian ethnic characteristics as consequently Muslim. It is important to realise that there is a ‘fundamental difference between a person's race and his religion. You cannot change your race. Your religion, however, is your choice.' Thus again Islamophobia in the police could have potentially disastrous consequences on both ethnic communities and encourage radicalism whilst also missing the new converts to Islam.
Empirical Outcomes from Study of Stop and Search
I carried out a study on members of the public between the ages of 18 29 in order to discover whether or not there was an actual, or at the very least a perceived, differential impact of police stop and search powers on various ethnic groups. There were real limitations to this study but we can make some informed conclusions from the results. I gave questionnaires to thirty people with various ethnic backgrounds (ten White, ten Asian, five Chinese and five Black) and the aim of the questionnaire was to discover their pre-disposition towards police, their experiences and whether this had been changed by recent political or personal events.
Pre-disposition
The first substantive question asked by the questionnaire took the form of a straightforward scenario where individuals were asked to rate the factors which they thought had influenced the police in it:
‘You are walking through a rough neighbourhood on your way home from visiting a friend all night, there is nobody about and everything seems okay to you. Suddenly two police officers stop you claiming that you are suspected of having been involved in burglary in the area that night. However, they are aggressive and unwilling to fully explain why they suspect you which makes you suspicious.


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