Letter: Crime and race

Sir: Stephen Forde expresses strong views but presents no evidence to back up his racist assertions. In fact very little is known about who commits what types of offences - the information usually referred to is about "known offenders", that is, those arrested by the police, and for many categories of offences the majority are not "cleared up".

The belief that black people are more involved in crimes which can be detected by stop and search is a direct result of the over-use of stop and search for these groups. This circular thinking is the reason for poor relations between police and ethnic minority groups, and young people as a whole.

PETER MARSHALL

Northbridge, Western Australia