00.00 Images:
Pottery chimneys
Potter
Mining
memorial
Housing
estates
BNP
Graffiti
Drama
reconstruction : Harassment
Interview
Dr Bill Dixon
Guide Voice: Throughout much of the last
century, Stoke-on-Trent and the surrounding areas were famous for
the pottery produced in kilns like these, jobs were plentiful and
the area was relatively prosperous. During the past thirty years
however the area was hit by a dramatic industrial decline, much of
the pottery production went overseas, steel production died out and
once productive coal - mines were closed. The growing presence
of ethnic minorities in this post – industrial environment
became a focus of resentment for some, and racial harassment began
to be a significant problem.
So researchers from Keele University’s Centre for
Criminological Research set out to examine why this should occur in
a post -industrial area, with funding from the Economic and Social
Research Council.
00.43 SOT Dr Bill Dixon, Lecturer in Criminology, Keele
University - "What we found was that people felt
that their whole way of life had changed and that in some way the
growing presence of people from other countries even from a settled
minority ethnic community in some ways symbolised that decline and
was associated with it, it became an emblem of how their lives had
changed and therefore the presence of other people was resented in
many ways."
01.12 Images:
Drama harassment
Close
ups report
Interview
Dr David Gadd
Guide Voice: Using a unique methodological
approach the researchers interviewed fifteen perpetrators of racial
harassment using the Free Association Narrative Interview Method,
to draw out in-depth biographical accounts of their backgrounds and
behaviour. Many of them did not regard themselves as racist or see
their actions in those terms.
01.30 Sot Dr David Gadd, Senior lecturer in Criminology,
Keele University - “Many of them insist
that they aren’t racist because they have friends who are
black or are mixed race or because they think there is something
distinctive about those populations that they label “Asylum
Seekers” or “Pakis”, “Kosovons”, that
means that their prejudice isn’t about race, it’s about
the things that they perceive those people to do – stealing
our jobs, being disrespectful, sometimes taking our women in some
cases.”
01.56 Images: 2
Shot David and Bill listening to tape
Tape
recorder
CU
tape turning etc
Guide Voice: These in-depth biographical
profiles of perpetrators and their attitudes were then compared
with those of the wider community through recording extensive focus
group discussions with a broad range of people…
SOT Tape- recorded voices Bill and focus
Group:
Question:“How do you feel about things in the area,
what has changed
Answers: “ It’s a dive” “There’s
more unemployment” “the parks are grotty, vandalised
all the time”
02.18 SOT Dr David Gadd, Senior Lecturer in Criminology,
Keele University -“Our key hypothesis was that
there was a relationship between the motivations of the
perpetrators and ordinary people’s attitudes about race,
ethnicity, migration, that kind of thing. So what we wanted to do
was explore that interconnection. Where the in-depth interviews
allowed us to probe the life history of perpetrators, what the
focus groups enabled was to elicit people attitudes so for those
attitudes to kind of bounce off each other in a kind of discussion
way.”
02.45 Images:
People on street
Drama
Racist behaviou
Interview
David Gadd
Guide Voice: They discovered that while there
was to an extent a shared perception of “us” and
“them” - people who belong in the area and people who
don’t – between local people and the perpetrators of
racial harassment, there the similarity ended. In fact the
perpetrators were much like any other offenders who are
routinely in trouble with the police in any community, the severely
disadvantaged with backgrounds of severe material and emotional
deprivation.
03.09 SOT Dr David Gadd - “The
perpetrators commit acts of racial harassment for all kinds of
reasons, reasons which they often perceive as not being racially
motivated but many of the people that we spoke to who were involved
in acts of racial harassment had very troubled lives of their own.
Often they came from homes that could be called broken, often
they’ve been mistreated as children and often they’re
involved in all kinds of crime.”
03.34 Images:
Copy of the report
Close
ups conclusions
Law
Books
Guide Voice: The report’s findings have
now been fed into the criminal justice system and the probation
service who work with many of these offenders, but this research
has a wider relevance beyond the West Midlands of the UK:
03.45 Sot Dr Bill Dixon - “Other
countries have to come to terms in the same way that Britain has
had to come to terms with ethnic diversity and how people who live
in what has been up to now homogenous areas struggle with the
experience of accepting and living alongside people from different
cultural backgrounds from different parts of the
world.”
End Images:
Kiln
Colliery wheel
Housing estate
04.18 Ends.
This material is available for use without restriction for up
to 28 days following the feed date, Tuesday 11 April 2006. For use
beyond this period, please contact Research-TV on +44 (0) 20 7004
7130 or email enquiries@research-tv.com.
