Black people and the criminal justice system

Prejudice and practice in later eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London

Bibliographic Data

ID4558448
AuthorsPeter King (0000-0001-8550-466X, University of Leicester), John Carter Wood (0000-0003-0592-9049, Leibniz Institute of European History; Mainz)
Year2015
Volume88
Issue239
Pages100-124
Publication date2015-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistorical Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0950-3471 • E-ISSN: 1468-2281
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/1468-2281.12063
OpenAlexW1533974699
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited33

This article explores how attitudes to black people were translated into practice by examining how the latter fared as victims, witnesses and especially as the accused when they came to the Old Bailey in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It concludes that there was no significant discrimination against black people as prosecutors and witnesses. Moreover, between 1791 and 1805, when a source containing systematic evidence on the ethnicity of the accused is briefly available, black people probably formed a smaller proportion of the accused than they did of the London population as a whole; and those who were prosecuted were less likely than average to be convicted and more likely to have their charges reduced. Although punishment patterns for black convicts included rather greater emphasis on transportation, an investigation of criminal justice practice in London reveals little or no systematic prejudice towards black people, thus indicating important contrasts with the experience of black people in colonial contexts and with the ways in which other ethnic groups such as the Irish were dealt with at the Old Bailey

Colonialism · Criminal justice · Criminology · Economic Justice · Ethnic group · Irish · Political science · Population · Sociology · Australian History and Society · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Demography · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology

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