Rashid Minhas Phd Thesis.Pdf
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‘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 Rashid Minhas A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements Of De Montfort University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2018 i Acknowledgments First and foremost, I want to thank my supervisor Professor Dave Walsh for having faith in my ability to do this research, for his inspiring encouragement, and his deep interest in my work. It has been an honour to be his first PhD student. I appreciate all his contributions of time, and ideas to make my PhD experience productive and stimulating. The joy and enthusiasm he has for research was contagious and motivational for me, even during tough times in the PhD pursuit. Professor Ray Bull, Professor Kevin Bampton, and Dr Mark Kilgallon have also helped me at various points, and I would like to thank them all for their interest, support and contribution. I would like to thank the Police Service who generously allowed me access to the information required for this research. I would like to thank the police officers and support staff. I am also thankful to the officers who I interviewed for this research. I have had a lot of help from others along the way. I also received crucial assistance from many research colleagues with the fieldwork for this research especially Nick Howe, who contributed significantly in the development of the interview schedule. I would also like to thank Bianca Baker for acting as a second coder and inter-rater for this research. A great many others have also helped me: Dr Tariq Mehmood (Barrister, 33 Bedford Row), Shafiq Ahmed (Allied Law Chambers), Mohsin Nazar (Warwick Solicitors). Thank you ii all for being such wonderfully generous and facilitating the defence lawyers’ participation in this research. I am also thankful to all the defence lawyers who I interviewed for this research. Finally, my family and friends have been a constant source of both practical and emotional support. Principally among these is my brother Ayyaz Akram, who has encouraged, supported, and lifted my spirits throughout my journey. iii Dissemination of Findings Peer Reviewed Journal Publications 1. Minhas, R., Walsh, D., & Bull, R. (2017) Developing a scale to measure the presence of possible prejudicial stereotyping in police interviews with suspects: The Minhas Investigative Interviewing Prejudicial Stereotyping Scale (MIIPSS), Police Practice and Research, 18:2, 132-145, https://doi.org/10.1080/15614263.2016.1249870 2. Minhas, R., Walsh, D., & Bull, R. (2017) An exploration of beliefs and experiences of suspects from the Muslim community relating to the investigative interviewing practices in England and Wales. Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, 12(2),158-174. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/18335330.2017.1355103 3. Minhas, R., & Walsh, D. (2018) Influence of Racial Stereotypes on Investigative Decision-making in Criminal Investigations: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Criminology & Criminal Justice Section: Cogent Social Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2018.1538588 4. Minhas, R., & Walsh, D. (Under review) Impact of ‘Suspect’ Community Stereotyping on Police Interviewing Practices in England: An Exploration of Legal Representatives’ Perceptions. iv Report Submitted to xxxxxxxxxx Constabulary 1. Minhas, R., Walsh, D., and Kilgallon, M. (2016) An examination of operational procedures into Constabulary's stop and search practices. A report submitted to xxxxxxxxxx Constabulary Committee on Stop and Search Practices Achievements 1. European Association of Psychology and Law: Student best research paper award, (August 2015) for the innovative study of the Minhas Investigative Interviewing Prejudicial Stereotyping Scale. Conference Contributions 1. Minhas, R., Walsh, D., & Bull, R. (2015). Developing a scale to measure the presence of possible negative stereotyping in police interviews with suspects. Paper presentation at the annual meeting of the European Association of Psychology and Law, Nuremberg, Germany. 2. Minhas, R. (2015). Investigative Interviewing Prejudicial Stereotyping Scale. Paper presentation at the 7th annual meeting of Postgraduate Criminology Conference, Belfast, UK. 3. Minhas, R., Walsh, D., and Bull, R. (2016) An exploration of beliefs and experiences of suspects from the Muslim community relating to the investigative interviewing practices in England and Wales. Paper v presentation at the 26th annual meeting of the European Association of Psychology and Law, Toulouse, France. 4. Minhas, R., and Walsh, D. (2017) A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Racial Stereotypes in Police Decision-making. Paper presentation at th 27th annual meeting of the European Association of Psychology and Law, Mechelen, Belgium. Book Chapters 1. Minhas, R., (2017) Prejudicial Stereotyping in Investigative Interviewing in Baker, B., Minhas, R., and Wilson, L. (Ed.) (2017): The psychology and law factbook 2: European Association of Psychology and Law publishing house. Book Edits 1. Baker, B., Minhas, R., and Wilson, L. (Ed.) (2017): The psychology and law factbook 2: European Association of Psychology and Law publishing house. vi 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, vii 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 instrument ‘the Minhas Investigative Interviewing Prejudicial Stereotyping Scale’ (MIIPSS) was developed and used to assess the apparent level of interviewers’ prejudicial stereotyping towards suspects from certain stigmatised groups. This study involved semi-structured interviews with twenty people, who had previously been interviewed as suspects in England and also eight very experienced lawyers. Both their views were measured using the MIIPSS before being subjected to a Guttman analysis. Statistical analyses showed that the MIIPSS satisfies the criteria for classification as a valid unidimensional and cumulative scale. It was found that the MIIPSS could be used as a tool to measure prejudicial stereotyping in investigative interviews towards suspects from stigmatised groups or individuals suspected of different types of crimes. The third study focused on the role of prejudicial stereotyping within the context of a ‘suspect’ community and investigative interviewing practices. As far as it is known, this is the first study that has obtained views from twenty- two real-life Asian Muslim suspects’ and explored their perceptions to examine whether prejudicial stereotypes could influence investigative interviews. Thematic analysis of interviews revealed that around two-thirds of the suspects reported perceiving the demonstration of various stereotyping by police officers during interviews, half of whom indicated that the interviewers demonstrated racial/religious stereotypes via discriminatory behaviour. The fourth study in this thesis broke new ground by examining the perceptions of fifteen very experienced legal representatives who had represented suspects in the police interviews. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts revealed that one-third of the legal representatives reported that they witnessed instances (in what these viii legal representatives described as a reckoned comparable case) when a white suspect was released whereas a charge was sought against an Asian Muslim suspect. Additionally, a quarter of these legal representatives mentioned instances of perceived police interviewers’ hostile and discriminatory behaviour towards their Muslim clients, also reporting that they felt such hostility was due to their