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Black and Asian people more likely to be handed Covid fines, report finds

ASIAN and black people were more likely than white people to be fined for breaking Covid-19 lockdown rules, according to a newly released report from human rights organisation Liberty. 
 
The civil liberties group found black people were more than twice as likely to be fined than people from a white background, which it said showed police bias and that the government had prioritised criminalisation over public health. 

The data was released through a freedom of information request from Radar to the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC). 

Police forces in England and Wales handed out 90,038 fixed penalty notices for breaches of coronavirus regulations between March 2020 and January 2022 where the person’s ethnicity was stated. 
 
Around 74,000 of those fined in the timeframe were white, which is a rate of 15.3 fines per 10,000 people. 

About 7,400 fines were handed to black people at a rate of 39.7 per 10,000. The comparison shows black people were 2.6 times more likely to be fined. 
 
People of mixed ethnicity and Asians were 1.4 and 1.9 times more likely to be fined respectively, the figures show.
 
Liberty has said powers given to police during the pandemic were too broad, leading to “heavy-handed policing” and the exposure of “symptomatic” bias.
 
The group’s campaigns officer Jodie Beck said: “By prioritising criminalisation over public health, the government laid the foundations for overzealous policing that fell hardest, and most unfairly, on people of colour.
 
“The response to the pandemic exposed pre-existing inequalities in how certain communities are over-policed.”

She added the government should invest in community led approaches with “participation, fairness and social justice at their heart.”

Social justice group Nacro said the figures show one of the ways people from ethnic minority backgrounds face disparity in the criminal justice system.

Chief executive Campbell Robb said: “Over-policing and criminalising people from ethnic minority backgrounds can have far-reaching consequences by eroding trust between communities and the authorities.”

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said while early results from independent analysis of the fines show disparities across race, these are “not necessarily a sign of discrimination.”
 
A Home Office spokesman said enforcement of Covid laws was used only as a last resort, adding it expects all officers to carry out their duties without prejudice.

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