The Invisible Minority: Irish Offenders and the English Criminal Justice System
| Published date | 01 March 1994 |
| Date | 01 March 1994 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/026455059404100101 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
The Invisible
Minority:
Irish Offenders and the
English Criminal
Justice System
Because of the deep historical and structural inequalities that they
face in Britain, including their high rates of admission in psychiatric
institutions, Irish people are likely to be over-represented in criminal
statistics. Patrick Murphy, probation officer in Nottingham and
Chair of the Nottingham Irish Studies Group, reviews the pattern of
discrimination arising from traditional British prejudice and the
added pressures of the Troubles in the North of Ireland and reports
early, tentative research findings which demonstrate discriminatory
sentencing patterns. He concludes that our current anti-
discriminatory policies and procedures are inherently biased against
Irish people who are ’neither foreign or British’.
he
Irish constitute the largest single
Historical Perspective
ethnic minority in Britam: 830,000
at the 1991
The Irish are often accused of
census. If the children of these
being
first-generation immigrants
obsessed with history but, without an
are taken into ac-
understanding of Ireland’s relationship to
count, the figure is closer to 4 million. And
Britain, it is impossible to understand the
yet this group is probably one of the least
problems that
visible
contemporary Irish im-
of Britain’s minority communities.
migrants and their children face. In the
The Irish were the first migrants to come to
Americas, Australia and m almost every
Britain in any numbers yet, despite this long
other country in which they have settled, the
tradition and the obvious advantages m this
Irish have fared as well, and m many cases
culture of being white, English speakmg and
better than other immigrant groups and have
European, they still suffer real disadvantage
achieved parity with the general population
and discnmination. Nevertheless, their plight
within a generation or so. Yet m Britain,
is constantly ignored by welfare agencies, in-
despite their obvious advantages, the Irish
cluding the Probation Service.
have failed to achieve an equal position in
2
socio-economic terms with the host com-
inhabitants of their country. In each case
munity and this appears to apply to their
the contempt rationalised a desire to
children and grandchildren, as much as to
exploit.’
.’
the first generation.
The contempt deepened m the Nineteenth
The genesis of this inequality is com-
Century as rebellion in Ireland refused to
plex but one of the reasons is undoubtedly
abate. Robert Peel, nicknamed ’Orange Peel’
that Ireland’s relationship to Britain is essen-
by the Irish, thought them to be ’radically
tially a post-colomal one. Ireland was Bri-
tain’s
corrupt’, and a Times editorial in December
first colony and its only European one.
1845 declared that ’The Irish have no feeling
Colonising powers have always justified their
for law and order. If someone is killed or
often barbarous treatment of the colonised
injured, their sympathies are for the
by arguing that the indigenous population are
culturally inferior and unfit
perpetrator of the deed and not the one who
to govern
suffers.’
themselves. It is therefore justified as an act
Such views were not confined to the
of altruism to take this responsibility from
them.
reactionary elements of British society
however. Engels in his classic and influential
The caricature of ’Paddy’
study The Condition of the Working Class
-
in England, whilst displaying some sympathy
dim-witted, drunken, violent,
for the Irish, felt that they had become
sometimes a lovable rascal -
in
irredeemably corrupted by centuries of
contrast to the nobler, steadier
oppression. And those doyens of British
Anglo-Saxon.
sociahsm, Sidney and Beatrice Webb wrote
about the Irish in 1892:
The Tudor conquest secured Ireland
’The people are charming but we detest
militarily and the sense of cultural
them, as we should the Hottentots, for
superiority over the native population was
their very virtues. Home Rule is an
reinforced by the Reformation and the rise
absolute necessity in order to depopulate
of English nationalism. In the Elizabethan
the country of this detestable race.’
period the dispossession of the native Irish
From such
was justified by their supposed depravity.
prejudice emerged the caricature
Edmund Spenser’, author of The Faerie
of ’Paddy’: dim-witted, drunken and violent,
Queen, who had amassed large tracts of land
sometimes seen as a lovable rascal, but
in Ireland, described them as:
always judged...
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