Crime and ethnicity

Question 1

in 2013 the Ministry of Justice reported that, compared to white people, black people were

Answer 1

• over twice as likely to be cautioned by police
• around 3x more likely to be arrested
• if arrested, more likely to be charged, remanded in custody and face court proceedings than to receive a caution
• more likely, if found guilty, to receive a custodial sentence and for a longer term
• 5x more likely to be in prison

Question 2

In 2013 the Ministry of Justice found that, compared to white people, Asians were

Answer 2

• more likely to be charged and face court proceedings than to receive a caution
• more likely to receive a custodial sentence if found guilty and for a longer term

Question 3

Custodial sentence definition

Answer 3

a prison sentence

Question 4

Indictable offences definition

Answer 4

more serious criminal offences that can be tried at the Crown Court (indictable offences only) or at the magistrates court. These contrast with less serious Summary Offences, such as motoring offences, common assault and criminal damage up to £5000, which are usually only tried by a magistrate’s court.

Question 5

in UK prisons last year,

Answer 5

• 12% of prisoners were black (4% of total population)
• 8% of prisoners were asian (9% of total population)
• 72% of prisoners were white (82% of total population)

Question 6

Neo-marxist approaches to the links between ethnicity and offending - black crime as resistance

Answer 6

• Gilroy (1982) - crime by black people (esp in 1970s) was a form of political action, representing a culture of resistance to inequality and oppression
• Gilroy denied that there was greater criminality among black people, suggesting that this is a myth created by negative police stereotypes and the media, who saw minorities as untrustworthy, labelling black people as ‘muggers’ and asians as potential illegal immigrants

Question 7

Neo-marxist approaches to the link between ethnicity and offending - black crime and scapegoating - the crisis of hegemony and the creation of the ‘black mugger’- Hall et al (1978)

Answer 7

• suggested that in the 1970s Britain was facing an economic and political crisis which threatened the dominance of ruling class ideology
• at the same time, there was growing conflict between the police and black communities, fuelled by selective publication of statistics showing black youth involvement in particular offences, including mugging
• this created a media-generated moral panic about the idea of the ‘black mugger’, which became a folk devil and a scapegoat for societal problems
• argued that there was no real increase in mugging but the moral panic was used to justify more aggressive and repressive police treatment of black people
• the media exaggerated the extent of black crime as a means of reasserting the dominance of ruling class ideas and re-establishing their hegemony

Question 8

Gov.uk - in 2022, black people were

Answer 8

over 5x more likely to be stopped and searched than white people

Question 9

Evaluation of neomarxist approaches to the link between ethnicity and offending

Answer 9

+ offer an explanation for black crime as a form of resistance
+ identify aggressive policing as arising from moral panics and stereotypes
- the ‘crisis of hegemony’ from the 1970s no longer exists but the conflict between minorities and the justice system remains
- Gilroy seems to impose his own interpretation of the meaning of black crime as a political act against oppression, but black crime is often committed against other black people
- Lea and Young (1984) point out that most crimes are reported by the public, not discovered by police, so it is hard to explain black crime in terms of police racism

Question 10

Left realist explanations for the link between ethnicity and crime - Lea and Young

Answer 10

• accept that the rate of criminality for some offences is higher among minority ethnic groups
• suggest 3 factors which contribute to this:
  1 - marginality - some groups are pushed to the edge of mainstream society by underachievement in education, unemployment, low pay, lack of opportunity etc - this creates resentment and a sense of powerlessness
  2 - relative deprivation - people from minority ethnic backgrounds are more likely to face deprived social situations
  3 - subculture - marginalisation and relative deprivation can combine in the formation of subcultures, providing peer-group support, which may involve criminality as a response to resentment and status frustration

Question 11

Poverty, social exclusion and the search for identity - Bowling and Phillips (2002)

Answer 11

• suggest higher levels of robbery by black people could be linked to poverty and social exclusion, which black communities are more likely to suffer
• criminal activities can generate peer-group status and a sense of a powerful black identity
• poverty and social exclusion can also affect asians, however their lower crime rates may be due to stronger cultural identities, and generally stronger controls within asian families and communities, which limit opportunities and desires to commit crime

Question 12

Labelling and stereotyping

Answer 12

• labelling theorists and marxists argue that statistics suggesting black and asian people are more likely to commit crimes are socially constructed and misleading, providing evidence for selective law enforcement
• racist stereotypes within the police means the minorities are more likely to have their actions labelled as criminal or deviant

Question 13

Reiner (2000) - interactionist perspective

Answer 13

points out the racist ‘canteen culture’ among the police, which includes suspicion, macho values and racism, and this encourages racist stereotypes and a mistrust of those from non-white backgrounds

Question 13

Philips and Bowling (2012) suggest evidence in racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is shown

Answer 13

• by indirect racial discrimination (mistrust of police, social position)
• by direct racial discrimination (stop and search, institutional racism, arrests, charging, court proceedings, sentencing, over-representation in prison)

Question 14

Phillips and Bowling (2012) - indirect racial discrimination in the criminal justice system

Answer 14

• mistrust of the police - means that minority suspects are less likely to cooperate with police, and less likely to admit to offences during interview or before trial, meaning they are ineligible for a caution or reduced sentence - 2023 Baroness Casey Review of Met. police found that less than 50% of public expressed confidence in the police
• social position - minority suspects are more likely to display social characteristics which make a remand in custody more likely than a release on bail, as they are thought to be more likely to abscond, including factors like poor housing and a lack of community

Question 15

Phillips and Bowling (2012) - direct racial discrimination - stop and search

Answer 15

• minorities fit police stereotypes so are more targeted for heavier policing
• Fitzgerald (1993) - police racial discrimination was greatest in situations where officers could exploit their own intuitions eg in stop and search
• Ministry of Justice 2013 - asians were twice as likely and black people 6x as likely to be stopped and searched than white people
• only about 1 in 10 stop and searches results in arrest
• Phillips and Bowling (2012) - stop and search contributes to unfair criminalisation of minorities and undermines support for police - contributed to 2011 riots
• Bowling and Phillips (2002) - regular police stop and searches can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy with higher levels of criminality among black youth

Question 16

Phillips and Bowling (2012) - direct racial discrimination - institutional racism

Answer 16

• the 1999 Macpherson report followed the investigation into the police handling of the murder of 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence by 5 white youths in 1993
• it was highly critical of the Metropolitan police pointing to a series of mistakes, professional incompetence and a ‘lack of urgency’ and mishandling of the investigation, including their assumption that Stephen Lawrence was involved in a street brawl when he was stabbed, rather than being the victim of an unprovoked racist attack
• the report concluded that the Metropolitan police was institutionally racist - Baroness Casey Review of 2023 found that it still is
• Metropolitan Black Police Association in 2008 warned minority ethnic groups not to join the force due a ‘hostile atmosphere where racism is allowed to spread’

Question 17

Phillips and Bowling (2012) - Direct racial discrimination - arrests, charges, court proceedings, sentencing, over-representation in prison

Answer 17

• police appear to arrest and charge some minority suspects without sufficient evidence - CPS is more likely to drop cases against ethnic minorities before they reach court, and the cases that do go to court have lower conviction rates, suggesting insufficient evidence
• black people face a greater likelihood of going to prison and receiving longer sentences than white offenders in the same position
• the prison population contains 3x the proportion of black people than the general population
• Phillips and Bowling (2012) - found evidence of minority prisoners facing more brutal regimes, including abuse, violence, intimidation, denial of earned privileges and disproportionate disciplinary action

Question 18

Sharpe and Budd (2005), based off findings from the Home Office’s 2003 Offending Crime and Justice Survey (OJCS, self-report study)

Answer 18

found that white people had the highest rate of reoffending, and white males 10-25 were the group who were most likely to have committed an offence in the last 12 months

Question 19

Evaluation of ethnicity and crime

Answer 19

• complex and difficult to determine causes due to other factors (class, age, gender etc)
• higher crime rates could be related to social and economic deprivation rather than ethnicity
• substantial evidence that official statistics may be an exaggerated distortion created by racist stereotyping, unjustified assumptions and labelling by the police, as well as racial discrimination in the CJS

Question 20

Institutional racism definition

Answer 20

refers to patterns of discrimination based on ethnicity that have become structured into social institutions