Ethnic bias in restorative processes? An analysis of access to the police-based national Danish VOM-programme
| Author | Katrine Barnekow Rasmussen |
| Published date | 01 June 2022 |
| Date | 01 June 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X21989778 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
2022, Vol. 95(2) 332 –355
Article
Ethnic bias in restorative
processes? An analysis of
access to the police-based
national Danish
VOM-programme
Katrine Barnekow Rasmussen
Faculty of Law, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies, University
of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract
In this article, possible ethnic bias in access to the national Danish police-based Victim
Offender Mediation (VOM) programme is investigated. The analyses of this project show
that the VOM personnel informants believe that ethnic minority offenders are under-
represented in this VOM programme. Also, numerous examples of essentialist views on
ethnicity and culture emerge among police personnel in the interview and observation
data. Yet interestingly, the national VOM participation rates in penal cases analysed for
this article show that while young male ethnic minority immigrants are under-
represented in VOM some years, young male ethnic minority descendants are actually
overrepresented in VOM meetings.
Keywords
Restorative justice police, ethnic bias police, Konfliktra
˚d Denmark, Norway, police
studies Scandinavia discretion
Introduction
Restorative Justice initiatives can lead to significantly lower reoffending rates and sig-
nificantly higher victim satisfaction and recovery rates than the processes of the tradi-
tional judicial system, and this at a lower cost (E.g. Lauwaert and Aertsen, 2015;
Corresponding author:
Katrine Barnekow Rasmussen, Faculty of Law, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Copenhagen,
Karen Blixens Plads 16, Copenhagen 2300, Denmark.
Email: xsq276@ku.dk
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
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DOI: 10.1177/0032258X21989778
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Rasmussen 333
Sherman and Strang, 2007).
1,2
Furthermore, restorative processes receive recognition for
being effective in preventing and handling escalating conflict situations, and are increas-
ingly utilised in Denmark and internationally, especially when working with youth and
children. Furthermore, several countries, including Norway and Northern Ireland, have
successfully used restorative processes as an alternative to the traditional judicial system,
when young people have broken the law.
Viewed in Goffmanian terms, restorative meetings could provide the parties with an
opportunity to manage the stigma or spoiled identities possibly resulting from commit-
ting or being the victim of an offence (Goffman, 1963; see also Rasmussen, 2020c).
In the Scandinavian – as in many other Western – countries, immigration and crime is
debated publically and politically. In Denmark, male ethnic minority youth is over-
represented in criminal convictions (Danmarks Statistik, 2018). Even if this population
group follows the general, declining crime tendency, especially male non-Western des-
cendants under 30 remain overrepresented, having a 2.5 criminal conviction index
compared to peer ethnic Danes.
3
A similar overrepresentation is also present in Norway
(Andersen et al., 2017).
There can be multiple explanations to this, including a higher risk of getting caught
due to higher levels of police attention. In 2003, Holmberg and Kyvsgaard examined
the practices of the Danish police in relation to ethnic minorities. According to their
findings ‘persons with a foreign background are more likely to be arrested in relation
to a charge, they are more likely to be remanded in custody without subs equently being
convicted, and they are more likely not to be convicted when charged with an offence’
(p. 125). In 2018, the Danish national television (DR) had Statistics Denmark do a
re-run of the numbers from Holmberg and Kyvsgaard’s article, this time focusing on
all charges made by the Danish police in 2014. According to the progr amme, compared
to ethnic Danes non-Western immigrants have an 86%larger risk of getting arrested
without it leading to a sentence. For non-Western descendants the number is 88%
(DR, 2018).
The special police attention directed towards ethnic minorities is also observed in
Scandinavian police research (Go¨rtz, 2015; Holmberg, 1999; Sollund, 2007). In this
regard, according to Høiga
˚rd, the high level of comparability of the Scandinavian wel-
fare states can be extended to their police forces, which are heavily influenced by these
state models (2011). According to the labelling theory, the discovery of crime and the
subsequent informal and formal responses by offenders’ networks and the criminal
justice system respectively can po tentially affect offenders’ life tra jectories towards
further offending (E.g. Becker, 1963; Braithwaite, 1989; see also Rasmussen, 2020c).
In this way, special police attention directed towards ethnic minorities can potentially
contribute to the committing of more criminal offences among this target group.
While anecdotal, during 9 years of working with crime prevention and youth at risk in
different municipalities, it has futhermore been the experience of this author that when it
comes to crime prevention, male ethnic minority youth is subject to a relatively higher
level of attention from not only police, but also municipal professionals, politicians and
citizens. At the same time, in the authors own practice an increased scepticism by these
actors towards a restorative approach to conflict and crime has been experienced, if
including (especially male) ethnic minority youth.
2The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles XX(X)
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