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'.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Cited in Liz Curtis, Nothing but the Same Old Story: The roots of anti-Irish racism, 1984.
2.
C Hill, God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution, 1970, p118
3.
G.B. Shaw, John Bull's Other Island, 1907.
4.
Finnegan, Poverty and Prejudice: Irish Immigrants, In York 1840-75, 1985, pp 132-54.
5.
Roger Swift, 'Crime and the Irish' in The Irish in Britain, a 1815-1939 , Roger Swift and Sheridan Gilley (Eds), 1989.
6.
G Pearson, Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears, 1981, p 74.
7.
Cited in Curtis, op cit, p 5.
8.
L. Greenslade , M. Pearson, M. Madden, Irish Migrants in Britain: Socio-Economic and Demographic Conditions. Paper no 3, University of Liverpool , 1991.
9.
G. O'Meachair , Social Work Today, 21 April 1988.
10.
e.g. M. Pearson , M. Madden, L. Greenslade, Generations of an Invisible Minority: The Health and Well Being of the Irish in Britain, Paper no. 2. University of Liverpool, 1991.
11.
This research was part of the author's submission to the recent report on anti-discriminatory policy for ACOP's Midland Region.
12.
D Cheyney.Into the Dark Tunnel, Prison Reform Trust, 1993, p 5.
13.
J O'Flynn and D. MurphyData and Information on the Irish in Britain, Action Group for Irish Youth.
