BME jurors and “same race leniency”

The new Ministry of Justice publishes an interesting report today into ethnicity and jurors.

The report found that Black and minority ethnic jurors were less likely to convict BME defendants than their white counterparts. Conversely, they were more likely to convict white defendants than their white counterparts. However, where a crime was racially aggravated, white jurors were nearly as likely to convict as BME jurors.

It has been suggested that this stems from “same race leniency” on the part of BME jurors, who perceive the criminal justice system to be biased against BME peoples.

Speaking at the launch of the report yesterday, the Chair of the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights, Trevor Phillips said,
“The system can have biases even though it’s populated by people of great goodwill. In this case one of the biases clearly emerges because most jurors think the system is geared against black defendants. This is a bias we want to avoid as much as we want to avoid a bias in favour of white defendants.”

A copy of the report can be found on the Ministry of Justice’s website, here.