Prosecutors are to be told they must consider their “unconscious bias” before charging ethnic minority suspects under a new ‘two-tier’ requirement in the Crown Prosecution Service code. The Telegraph has the story.
Stephen Parkinson, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), is to introduce a new requirement in the code for all prosecutors that they should be “mindful” of the potential for bias in deciding what action to take with an ethnic suspect.
He admitted his staff had felt “affronted” when it was suggested they were biased in their decision-making, but he said he was “sure” there was “unconscious” bias, which meant it needed to be “in the forefront of people’s minds” when making decisions.
The CPS drew up a race action plan after research two years ago found that defendants from minority ethnic backgrounds were significantly more likely to be charged for a comparable offence than white British defendants.
The plan aims for prosecutors to “understand that bias can be present” in all their work and must be “consciously” addressed, and that they should challenge racial bias in decision-making across the criminal justice system.
The move comes amid controversy about ‘two-tier’ policing after the murder of Henry Nowak, 18, who was handcuffed as he lay dying by officers after Vickrum Digwa, his Sikh killer, had accused him of racial abuse.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council has said it will review its guidance on race after it suggested that “racial equity” did not mean “treating everyone the same or being colour-blind”.
Sir Stephen Watson, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, has warned that policing in Britain has adopted the “language of activism” and official guidance has “over-corrected” to combat accusations of racism.
Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “This is dangerous nonsense. Policing and prosecution decisions should be colour-blind. Decisions should be taken simply on the facts. Different charge rates are not evidence of bias by prosecutors.
“The accused’s colour or religion should not come into it when making charging decisions. Demanding prosecutors consider their own supposed unconscious bias means ethnic minorities will get treated differently to white suspects. This is unacceptable and will lead to two-tier justice.”
Worth reading in full.
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The concept of ‘unconscious bias’ has been debunked as a bullxxxx theory for many years yet it crops up again and again. See for example this article from Psychology Today:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/rabble-rouser/202203/12-reasons-be-skeptical-common-claims-about-implicit-bias
However, it fits the leftist theory that everyone is a blank slate and only muh discrimination is the reason why certain groups do not achieve or are disproportionately involved in crime. Also bull. And now this bag of useless soy wants to put this at the heart of sentencing decisions. Absolutely ideological.
If he’s “sure” that prosecutors have unconscious bias, sounds like he’s pretty biased himself.
First remove the mote from your own eye …..
I hope this pious ruling includes the indigenous white ethnicity.
I thought this had been shelved after the “Sentencing Guidelines” controversy?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yg887m6qdo
Oh wait! Sentencing is after the prosecution , they’ve just moved the racism forwards so the brown people don’t even have to go to court!
“The accused’s colour or religion should not come into it when making charging decisions.”
Unless White, Christian then throw the book at them.
This clown should look up the definition of “unconscious”.
The only thing prosecutors should consider is how much propaganda and indoctrination they have had to swallow and whether that means they are now giving minorities an easy ride as a result.
Wasn’t Lord Hermer, the attorney general, frothing at the mouth with indignation when the idea was raised that perhaps there is an element of two-tier behaviour present in the police and the judiciary…?
Now it turns out that actually it is official policy.
And this is the general problem with government denial: yesterday’s conspiracy theory is today’s government policy.
I struggle to understand the idea that one can consciously address something whose existence and nature are both unknown.
It’s like a teacher reprimanding you for a misspelt word that you believed to be spelt correctly when you wrote it down, and asking you why you didn’t check it in the dictionary.
Only in this case there is no dictionary anyway.
Can someone please resurrect Mr King, I’d love to get his take on the current state of anti white racism and judging everyone by the colour of their skin…
How are prosecutors to quantify unconscious bias? How would anyone evaluate “conscious overcompensation for unconscious bias”?
Why is this not simply adjusting for unknown mitigating circumstances by guesswork?
Prosecutors should consider whether someone has committed a crime… and that’s it.
Bang on! whether or not they have broke the law, not what colour or ethnicity they are
Supposedly, the criterion is, is the evidence sufficient that there is at least a 51% chance of a jury convicting.