Crime, ethnicity and social class

Question 1

‘Black people commit more crime’ statistics

(-) statistics aren’t just a result of race, e.g age can play a role (young men often stopped more and due to high population of black young males it influences the black statistics overall)

(-) victim surveys suggest official statistics may be wrong

Answer 1

statistics can be unreliable - police racism means that back people are more likely to be stopped and searched, white crime may go unnoticed more + there is a lack of black people in the legal system

Hall et all: society labels black people as criminals

• marxists: Black people are scapegoats to distract people from social issues caused by capitalism

Question 2

‘Ethnic minorities are more likely to be victims of crimes’

Answer 2

ethnic minority households more likely to be mugged etc over white groups

some of these crimes might be racially motivated but some are also intra-ethnic

may have a lack of faith in the criminal justice system and in the police as a result of being targeted

Question 3

‘working class people commit more crime’

• more working class people in prison over any other class

Answer 3

w/c crimes like theft receive publicity because people feel sorry for their victims - publicity causes focus on resolving these crimes over white collar crime (which are treated more leniently)

Left realists argue that the media causes relative deprivation = crime

Miller - working class subcultures encourage working class crime especially in men