crime and deviance topic 6 - ethnicity, crime and justice Flashcards
evidence to show Black people are over-represented in the criminal justice system
- they make up 3% of the population but 13.1% of the prison population
name the alternative sources of statistics
- victim surveys
- self-report studies
what are victim surveys
ask individuals to describe what crime they have been victims of during the past 12 months
how are they useful
- can gain information on the pattern of offending regarding ethnicity
- shows a great amount of crime is intra-ethnic
evaluate the usefulness of victim surveys
- rely on victim’s memory of the event
- Phillips and Bowling —> their evidence suggests that white victims may ‘over identify’ Black people even if they were not sure
what are self-report studies
- ask individuals to disclose their own dishonest and violent behaviours
what did Graham and Bowling find
- Black people and White people had similar rates of offending: 43% and 44%
why are self report studies useful?
- challenge the stereotype that Black people are more likely to offend
what is seen at different stages of the criminal justice system
ethnic partiality
who notes the many allegations of oppressive policing towards ethnic minorities
- Philips and Bowling
what are three reasons explaining disproportionate stop and search patterns
- police racism
- ethnic differences
- demographic factors
describe police racism
-deeply ingrained racist attitudes and negative stereotypes which lead deliberate stop and search targeting
describe how ethnic differences in offending relate to stop and search
- in high discretion stops police act without specific intelligence and rely on their stereotypes
describe demographic factors
- if an individual lives in an area with a higher crime rate they are more likely to be stop and searched
what are the two main explanations for ethnic differences in the official statistics
- left realism
- neo marxism
