6. Ethnicity, crime and justice Flashcards
Statistics on ethnic differences in imprisonment
- black people, who make up 3% of the population, make up 13.1% of the prison population
- Asians who make up 6.5% of the population, make up 7.7% of the prison population
the ministry of justice notes that blank people are - 7x more likely to be stopped and searched
- 3.5x more likely to be arrested
- 5x more likely to be in prison
Than their white counterparts
Alt sources of stats: victim surveys
These show that most crime is intra ethnic and can be used to gather info about ethnicity. But they have limitations:
1. They rely on memory. Philips and bowling day evidence suggests that white victims may over identify blacks as offenders
2. They only cover personal crimes which are 1/5th of all crimes
3. They exclude under 10s - EM groups have many young people
4. They exclude crimes by and against organisations
Alt sources of stats: self report studies
- Graham and Bowling found that blacks and whites had similar offending rates while Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis had much lower rates
- This challenges the stereotype of blacks being more likely to offend and shows that evidence on ethnicity and offending is inconsistent
Ethnicity, racism and the CJS: policing
Philips and Bowling: since the 1970s there have been many allegations of oppressive policing of EM communities including
- mass stop and searches
- excessive surveillance
- police violence
- armed raids
- paramilitary tactics
- deaths in custody
Ethnicity, racism and the CJS: stop and search
- EM members are more likely to be stopped and searched with blacks being 7x more likely and Asians being 2x more likely than whites
- Philips and Bowling: members of EM communities are more likely to think they’re over-policed and under-protected
- Hoyle says for Asians the chance of taser involvement was 3 in 10K but it was 18 in 10K for blacks
Ethnicity, racism and the CJS: explaining stop and search patterns
- Police racism
The Macpherson report on the Stephen Lawrence murder showed there was institutional racism within the Met police - Ethnic differences in offending
There are different types of stop and searches:
- low discretion stops where police act on relevant info about an offence
- high discretion stops where police act without specific intelligence and use stereotypes instead - Demographic factors
EMs are over represented in the population groups who are most likely to be stopped eg young, unemployed
Ethnicity, racism and the CJS: arrests and cautions
- figured for England and wales show the arrest rate for blacks was 3x the rate for whites
- once arrested, blacks and Asians were less likely than whites to receive a caution
- this may be because EM members are more likely to deny an offence and use their right to legal advice but by doing this they can’t be let off with a caution and are more likely to be charged
Ethnicity, racism and the CJS: prosecution and trial
- the crown prosecution service decides whether a case should be prosecuted in court
- studies show the CPS is more likely to drop cases against EMs
- Bowling and Philips argue that this may be because the evidence presented to the CPS is weaker and based on stereotypes
Ethnicity, racism and the CJS: convictions and sentencing
- black and Asian defendants are less likely to be found guilty because the police and CPS bring weaker and less serious cases against them in court
- black offenders have an imprisonment rate that is 3% higher than white offenders while this jd 5% got Asian offenders
- Hood’s study of 5 crown courts found that even when such factors were taken into account, black men were 5% more likely to receive a custodial sentence on average 3 months longer than white men (9months for Asian men)
Ethnicity, racism and the CJS: pre-sentence reports
- these are risk assessments which help magistrates to decide on the appropriate sentence for an offender
- but Hudson and Bramhall found that reports on Asian offenders were less comprehensive and suggested that they were less remorseful than white offenders
Ethnicity, racism and the CJS: prison
- blacks were 4x more likely than whites to be in prison
- black and Asian offenders are more likely than whites to be serving longer sentences of 4+ years
- all EM groups have a higher than average proportion of prisoners in remand (awaiting trial) because they are less likely to be granted bail
Explaining the differences in offending: left realism
- Lea and Young say ethnic differences in stats reflect real differences in levels of offending. They acknowledge police racism but say it can’t fully explain the differences in stats. Eg, 90% of crimes are reported by the public so even if the police discriminate, it isn’t likely that this can account for ethnic differences in stats
- Lea and Young also say we can’t explain the differences between minorities as police racism. Eg blacks are criminalised more than Asians so the police would have to be very selective in their racism in order for it to cause these differences
Criticisms of Lea and Young
They can be criticised for their views on the role of police racism. For example arrest rates for Asians may be lower than for blacks because police see blacks as dangerous and Asians as passive
Explaining the differences in offending: neo Marxism - Gilroy
- Gilroy says black criminality is a myth created by racist stereotypes of African Caribbeans and Asians but these groups are no criminal than any other
- EM crime is a form of political resistance against a racist society which has its roots in earlier struggles against British imperialism. However their political struggle was criminalised by the British state
Critique of Gilroy
Lea and Young say
- 1st gen immigrants were law abiding so it’s unlikely they passed down anti colonial struggle
- most crime is intra ethnic so Gilroy is romanticising street crime as revolutionary when it isn’t
- Asian crime rates are similar to or lower than whites so if Gilroy were right, the police would be racist to blacks but not Asians
