Racial Justice Research: Identifying Systemic Bias in UK Drug Policing

Client: Release UK

When Release, the UK's leading drug law reform organization, needed definitive evidence of racial disparities in drug law enforcement, they turned to Dr. Bear to lead the quantitative analysis for their groundbreaking report "The Numbers in Black and White." This project represented the most comprehensive examination of racial bias in UK drug policing ever undertaken, requiring sophisticated analysis of data from 43 police forces across England and Wales.

The challenge was immense: synthesizing stop-and-search data, arrest records, charging decisions, and sentencing outcomes to reveal patterns of systemic discrimination that had long been suspected but never definitively proven. Dr. Bear led the statistical analysis that demonstrated Black people were being stopped and searched for drugs at six times the rate of white people, despite having similar or lower rates of drug use. The work required exceptional precision in methodology, as the findings would be scrutinized by policymakers, police leaders, and advocacy organizations. Our analysis built upon the previously reported data that only 7% of drug stop-and-searches resulted in arrests, yet these ineffective practices were driving massive racial disparities throughout the criminal justice system. The report became a cornerstone document in UK drug policy reform discussions, providing irrefutable evidence that drug law enforcement was systematically targeting minority communities and contributing to broader patterns of social inequality.

The final report can be read here.