PSNI shocking statistics show ‘Catholics’ twice as likely to be arrested and charged than ‘Protestants’
Discrimination against the Republican, Nationalist and Catholic community has today been confirmed by the PSNI’s own statistics as it was revealed that the force, formerly named the RUC, are twice as likely to arrest and charge a ‘Catholic’ in the Six Counties than they are a ‘Protestant’.
“This lays bare the very clear bias against one community,” says Lasair Dhearg’s Pól Torbóid, “from a police force that is overwhelmingly Protestant and Unionist.”
Pól said, “Those statistics, recorded by the PSNI themselves from 2016 to 2020, show that they arrested 57,000 ‘Catholics’ and only 31,000 ‘Protestants’. Of those subsequently charged, 27,000 were ‘Catholic’ and only 15,000 were from the ‘Protestant’ community. This very clearly shows two very obvious biases within the PSNI; if you are perceived to be from the ‘Catholic’ community then they are twice as likely to arrest you, and then you are more likely to be charged.”
“The PSNI’s Acting Assistant Chief Constable Sam Donaldson, in response to the release of the statistics, has said that they are ‘tasked with following the evidence without fear or favour, and in accordance with the law’. Such victim-blaming comments clearly lay the cause for these disgusting statistics with the community facing twice the number of arrests from a clearly biased ‘police force’.”
“More concerning is the deliberate targeting of the Catholic, Nationalist and Republican community with degrading stop and search legislation which has been used by the PSNI at least 374,000 times in the past ten years. This astronomical figure is equivalent to one fifth of the population of the Six Counties being stopped without consent and then forcibly searched. What is extremely worrying about this is that it is clearly being utilised against one community but the PSNI are refusing to record the community background of those searched because it would clearly display the rampant discrimination by the force against the Republican, Nationalist and Catholic community.”
Daniel Holder, the deputy director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) said that they have been concerned “for some time” that the PSNI is not monitoring the community background of individuals subjected to police powers like stop and search, and other measures.
Mr Holder said: “The past equality impact assessment into the use of spit-hoods revealed an alarming figure that 80% of those on which a hood was used had a disability. In terms of community background it also recorded that use on Catholics was twice that of Protestants.
“What was surprising is that no explanation or analysis was provided as to the reasons why this might be the case in the PSNI document, which also bizarrely stated there was not a differential when there clearly was.”
In relation to the release of the statistics, Pól Torbóid added, “These figures have only come to light as The Detail submitted a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to the PSNI. In a separate FoI request to the force, The Detail asked why the force doesn’t record the community background of people subjected to stop and search. The PSNI fudged their response with a nonsense reply stating cost grounds.”
Pól concluded, “We all know that the PSNI are going to great lengths to target the Republican, Nationalist and Catholic community with recruitment into their sectarian force. This has been clear over recent months with advertisements in specific areas and publications. We also know that they deliberately target the same community with stop and searches, arrests and then subsequent charges, and this has now been backed up by the PSNI’s own statistics.”
“Two decades of the PSNI and nothing has changed; nor will it ever, regardless of the religious make-up of its heavily armed ranks.”
ENDS
