Crime And Deviance : Ethnicity And Crime Flashcards
Disproportionately in the CJS
Data indicates that ethnic minority groups are generally over-represented in the CJS. According to the Ministry of Justice:
Black groups 4x more likely to be stopped and searched than white groups
Black groups 3x more likely to be as arrested than white groups
Back groups 4x more likely to be in prison than white groups
The Lammy Review 2017
People from BAME backgrounds make up 25% not the prison population in England and Wales, despite making up 14% of the general population
Philips and Bowling 2012
There have been many allegations of oppressive policing of minority ethnic communities:
Mass stop and search
Police violence
Excessive surveillance
Prison population 2014
1/4 of prison population were from minority ethnic groups
What are the 2 explanations for the differences in offending for different ethnicities?
- Ethnic minorities are subject to discriminatory treatment within the CJS (Neo-Marxist view)
- The rates of offending do truly differ along the lines of ethnicity (Left Realists)
Neo-Mx view of differences in offending
The over-representation of Black people in CJS statistics is a product of criminalisation by the police + courts rather than of higher levels of criminality
There are two Neo-Marxists to use as examples of this view:
1. Hall et al: Policing the Crisis
2. Gilroy: the Myth of Black Criminality
Hall et al : policing the crisis (AO2 for Neo Marxist)
- 1970s = Britain facing high rates of unemployment
- simultaneously, conflict between the African-Caribbean community and the police – they felt the youth were being targeted
- The media started to promote that black people were more prone to criminality than whites – the image of the ‘black mugger’ was created
- They became the folk devil in the moral panic and were scapegoated for society’s problems
- Hall et al – there had not been a real increase in muggings – moral panic had convinced people otherwise
- Police did aggressive stop and searches against the black community
- People supported this – the whole thing was fabricated to distract from the real problems and reassert ruling class hegemony
Further AO2 for the Neo-Mx view of differences in offending
The sus laws and operation swamp (1981)
- Aggressive policing using stop and search powers and the old ‘sus’ laws (which allowed police to arrest purely on suspicion of an impending illegality), were used disproportionately against young black males
- Operation Swamp (1981): a 10 day operation in which 150 plain clothes officers made 1000 stops and 150 arrests. Two nights of rioting followed.
Evaluation of Hall et al
They don’t show evidence on how the capitalist crisis led to a moral panic
Left realists – there really was an increase in crime. And most crimes are reported by the public (90%), not the police – so how can it be police racism?
They are romanticizing the criminals by shifting all the blame away from them
Gilroy: The Myth of Black Criminality (AO2 for the Neo Marxist view)
- Rejected the view that black criminals were poorly socialised and thus became criminals
- Instead, he saw minority ethnic groups as defending themselves against a society that treated them unfairly
- Both British Asians + African Caribbean’s originate from former British colonies – learnt how to resist oppression
- Brought this over to Britain in late 1970s + early 1980s
- They retaliated against police harassment and racially motivated attacks
- The myth of Black criminality = created as a result of the police having negative stereotypes:
= African Caribbean’s: wild and lawless / muggers.
= Asians: illegal immigrants - Statistics that show a disproportionate involvement of African Caribbeans in street crime cannot be trusted
-Statistics reflected police prejudice rather than real difference in offending
Evaluation of Gilroy
By arguing that the meaning of Black crime is a political act against oppressors, he is romanticizing criminals.
Black crime is often committed against other black or poor people – how can it be seen as resistance to oppression?
First generation of immigrants in 1950s + 1960s were law-abiding – unlikely they passed down anti-resistance traits
Contemporary AO2 for institutional racism
Stephen Lawrence:
1993 - 18 years old and stabbed to death by a gang of white youths due to his skin colour
Police failed to collect sufficient evidence = only 2/5 charged but the CPS halted proceedings
Labour gov elected in 1997 - the new Home Secretary ordered a public enquiry chaired by sir William macpherson
His findings became known as the macpherson report
Consequences of the Macpherson Report (1999)
Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 = imposed a duty on public bodies to promote equality
Criminal Justice Act 2003 = scrapped double jeopardy (the legal principle that prevented someone being tried twice for the same crime after being cleared at the first hearing)
Reopening of the case = 2 of the original 5 were finally convicted in 2012
How do labelling theorists and Marxists see crime statistics
As a social construction
Reiner
there is a racist ‘canteen culture’ among the police, which includes suspicion, macho values and racism, which encourages racist stereotypes
= they’ll target non-whites more, and therefore cause an increase in non-white offending
Left Realist view of differences in offending for different ethnicities
They challenge the idea that ethnic disparities in CJS statistics are simply a product of discrimination by law enforcement agencies.
They see statistics representing real differences in rates of offending
They accept that police racism exaggerates the BAME crime rate - they believe that unemployment (which is more common amongst BAME groups) and racial discrimination results in higher BAME crime rates
Left realists argue that it is not entirely a myth that certain types of crime are more common amongst minority ethnic groups than among whites
Lea and Young criticise Gilroy for suggesting that the disproportionate number of black males convicted of crimes was caused by police racism:
- 92% of crimes known to the police are brought to their attention by the public, and only 8% are uncovered by the police themselves
- Recorded rate for crimes committed by whites was consistently higher than that for Asians
- Black groups have a higher rate of criminalisation than Asians = police would have to be very selective in their racism
Left realist causes of crime and how this creates differences of offending amongst different ethnicities
Crime is a product of relative deprivation, subculture and marginalisation
Racism = led to economic exclusion of ethnic minorities who face higher levels of unemployment, poverty + poor housing
Media emphasis on consumerism = relative deprivation means they unable to reach these goals through legitimate means
Formation of delinquent subcultures that leads to:
- Utilitarian crime to cope with relative deprivation
- Non-utilitarian crime due to feeling frustrated and marginalised
How do left realists criticise Neo Marxists?
Neo-Marxists argue that first generation immigrants resisted police / racist oppression, which is why they appeared in the crime stats
However, Left Realists argue that in the 1960s, recorded rates of first generation Afro-Caribbean crime, were lower than the national average
They criticize Gilroy for not accepting that unemployment + racial discrimination resulted in more crime
Disagree with Anti colonial struggle - Most young West Indians were 2nd generation immigrants who had lived in Britain since birth
= their parents were law-abiding!
Evaluation of left realists
Crime rates are different between Blacks and Asians due to the stereotypes of the police
= Blacks are dangerous
= Asians are passive
Neo-Marxists: the statistics are a social construct and invalid due to police discrimination and clear institutional racism
Clancy et al
Much of the difference in victimisation can be explained in terms of social factors such as:
The areas in which BAME groups live
The higher rates of unemployment amongst BAME groups
And the younger age profiles of BAME groups compared to whites
British Crime Survey data for ethnicity and victimisation
2014 - over 52,000 hate crimes recorded (many hate crimes go unreported because victims believe the police would not do much about them / bad relationships with police)
Muslim adults more likely to be a victim of racially motivated hate crime (1.2%) than other adults (0.1%)
2014-15 - victims of hate crime were more likely than victims of CSEW to say they were emotionally affected by the incident (92% and 81%) respectively
PRC
Police Recorded Crime
Rapid increase in the 1950s due to war(Realists saw this as REAL)
5 million offences in the year ending March 2017
However – PRC statistics don’t report all crime. (Ignore less serious crime such as being drunk and disorderly)
Police can’t record crime that hasn’t been reported to them - ’dark figure’ of crime
Validity is LOW - not all crimes are recorded
Reliability is LOW – changes in police activity and changes in the public’s willingness to report different categories of crime
CSEW / BCS
Crime Survey for England and Wales / British Crime Survey
More representative (35,000 interviewed)
Picks up on crimes that haven’t been reported / have been reported but not recorded
Higher validity than PRC due to high response rates + more reliable as the methodology is more consistent
However – doesn’t include some crimes e.g. murder (cannot interview the victim) and victimless crimes such as using drugs
Most types of corporate crime and environmental crime are not included
Respondents may withhold info / forget key incidents
Hope + CSEW
CSEW have caps on number of incidents of victimisation that respondents can report - when cap is removed there is a 70% of violent crime committed against women
