https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/de-montfort/oai:dora.dmu.ac.uk:2086/17554
type: CreativeWork
name: ‘Suspect’ Community Stereotyping and Criminal Investigations: “In pursuit of higher transparency”: A study of how police officers in England and Wales are believed to investigate people from the Muslim community
description: In England and Wales, the ‘war on terror’ has been argued to impact adversely on existing race relations policies. Recent research has suggested that changes in legislation (such as wide discretionary powers of stop and search) and counter-terrorism measures (such as arrest and the extension of pre-charge detention of 28 days under the Terrorism Act [2006], and the use of control orders to detain without trial) may have contributed to the construction and reinforcement of the Muslim community as a ‘suspect’, which, in turn, may result in a police bias towards members of the Muslim community. Research showed that such police bias had contributed to the grave violations of human rights with appalling consequences that involved miscarriages of justice. This thesis focuses on an under-researched aspect of police investigative and interviewing processes, namely, the influence of prejudicial stereotyping on criminal investigations when investigating the suspects from a ‘suspect’ community. This thesis examined the influence of prejudicial stereotyping (within the context of criminal investigations) and originally contributed to the existing knowledge through the course of five studies. The first study focused on the role of prejudicial stereotyping in stop and search practices. This first study examined more than 2,100 stop and search records of the provincial police force in England and Wales, as well as 20 semi-structured interviews which were conducted with serving police officers (from the same force) to examine whether police officers use prejudicial stereotypes to inform suspicions in their day to day policing. This first study ascertained that officers rely on certain types of stereotypes (e.g. people’s age, race, appearance, location, and social class) to inform their suspicions. In order to examine how such prejudicial stereotyping may affect criminal investigations, the second study in this thesis utilised a novel approach. In this second study, an innovative in…
abstract: In England and Wales, the ‘war on terror’ has been argued to impact adversely on existing race relations policies. Recent research has suggested that changes in legislation (such as wide discretionary powers of stop and search) and counter-terrorism measures (such as arrest and the extension of pre-charge detention of 28 days under the Terrorism Act [2006], and the use of control orders to detain without trial) may have contributed to the construction and reinforcement of the Muslim community as a ‘suspect’, which, in turn, may result in a police bias towards members of the Muslim community. Research showed that such police bias had contributed to the grave violations of human rights with appalling consequences that involved miscarriages of justice. This thesis focuses on an under-researched aspect of police investigative and interviewing processes, namely, the influence of prejudicial stereotyping on criminal investigations when investigating the suspects from a ‘suspect’ community. This thesis examined the influence of prejudicial stereotyping (within the context of criminal investigations) and originally contributed to the existing knowledge through the course of five studies. The first study focused on the role of prejudicial stereotyping in stop and search practices. This first study examined more than 2,100 stop and search records of the provincial police force in England and Wales, as well as 20 semi-structured interviews which were conducted with serving police officers (from the same force) to examine whether police officers use prejudicial stereotypes to inform suspicions in their day to day policing. This first study ascertained that officers rely on certain types of stereotypes (e.g. people’s age, race, appearance, location, and social class) to inform their suspicions. In order to examine how such prejudicial stereotyping may affect criminal investigations, the second study in this thesis utilised a novel approach. In this second study, an innovative in…
author: Minhas, Rashid
license: https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstreams/2b00f71b-ae99-47a8-bbab-2b6318923c78/download
date published: 2018-10
date modified: 2026-07-24T06:18:33Z
provider: De Montfort University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: De Montfort University