1. The research was conducted by Will Pritchard who wrote up some of the findings in “Behind Bars: How Rap Lyrics are Being Used to Convict Black British Men,” Guardian, June 21, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jun/21/behind-bars-how-rap-lyrics-are-being-used-to-convict-black-british-men, supported by Economic and Social Research Council funds at the University of Manchester as part of the Prosecuting Rap project (on this project see https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/prosecuting-rap/).
2. The Youth Justice Legal Centre produced a short guide for lawyers that focuses on the problem of police officers acting as rap experts and how to challenge it. See Youth Justice Legal Centre, Fighting Racial Injustice 3: Rap and Drill (Youth Justice Legal Centre, 2022), https://yjlc.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/2022-05/YJLC_Racial-injustice_Toolkit-3%28R4%29%20final.pdf. For a more in-depth legal guide from the US that has relevance for the UK context, see J. Lerner and C. Kubrin et al. Rap on Trial Legal Guide, Version 1 (Irvine, CA: University of California, 2021), https://cpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.uci.edu/dist/d/2220/files/2022/08/Rap-on-Trial-Legal-Guide-v1.1.pdf.
3. On police institutional racism, see L. Casey, “The Baroness Casey Review: The Standards of Behaviour and Internal Culture of the Metropolitan Police Service” (London: Metropolitan Police, 2023), https://www.met.police.uk/police-forces/metropolitan-police/areas/about-us/about-the-met/bcr/baroness-casey-review/; Police Scotland, “Police Constable Statement on Institutional Discrimination,” 2023, https://www.scotland.police.uk/what-s-happening/news/2023/may/chief-constable-statement-on-institutional-discrimination/.
4. White British suspects have the lowest rate with 69.6 per cent of cases resulting in a charge, compared with Caribbean suspects (77.5 per cent) and Mixed Heritage suspects (between 77.3 per cent and 81.3 per cent) for similar offences. Figures from Crown Prosecution Service, “CPS action to understand disproportionality in charging decisions,” February 7, 2023, https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/cps-action-understand-disproportionality-charging-decisions.
5. This article does not foreground the names of individuals (though the case and its actants are readily identifiable) because the thrust of the article is not about individuals but about structures, discourses and processes.