Ethnicity

Question 1

Evidence of Institutional Racism

Answer 1

Stephen Lawrence murdered in 1993 - police covered up racist crime, little attempt to convict anyone.
McPherson report argued that institutional racism, the stereotyping of black people in police canteen culture was to blame.

Waddington - police stop and search ethnic minorities more. However, he also argues that there are more ethnic minority youths out at night in inner cities and that police target those in high risk areas.

A03 - Police do stop and searches in working class, materially deprived - happens ethnic minorities are more likely to be living in those areas.

A03 - right realist oppose connection between crime and poverty. Blame increasing crime rates on welfare state, lack of discipline and decline in traditional families.

Question 2

Other reasons for high rates of street crime with black people

Answer 2

Educational success - in 2006 only 23% of Afro-Carribean boys achieved GCSEs grades of 5C’s
Family structure - 60% of young black males are from lone parent families
Mass media - influence of black ‘rap artists’ aspire to be like the people they listen

Question 3

Lea and Young - Left Realists -

Criminality of Afro-Carribbean

Answer 3

Black people more likely to be involved with street crime than white people - taking away from idea that police was simply racist towards them.
Reasons for this:
Marginalisation 
Relative deprivation 
Subcultures

A03 - functionalists argue due to inadequate socialisation

Question 4

Gilroy - Neo Marxists -

Political nature of black crime

Answer 4

Argues young black people are targeted by the media and the police
Black crime is happening due to struggle against racism
Political statement to start a revolution against discrimination - their political struggle has been criminalised the the state
E.g - Rastafarianism - not just religion but contains set of revolutionary political ideas
A03 - do they really know they are being oppressed - is it just excuse

Question 5

Institutional racism

Answer 5

Reiner - canteen culture amongst police, suspicion, macho values, racism encourages racist stereotypes

Bowling and Phillips - high levels of robbery among black people could be caused by regular stop and search - leads to SFP eg black muggers

A03 - Becker would argue happens due to labelling

Question 6

Most common victims

Answer 6

Ethnic minorities most likely victim - particularly ethnic minority women
Areas with a lot of w/c ethnic minorities have high crime rates
Labelling of ethnic groups

Question 7

Two reasons for criminality

Answer 7

Ethnic minorities more likely to be criminals:
Structuralism view - they are more criminal
Social constructionist views - the justice system is unfair

Question 8

Victimisation

Answer 8

Ethnic minorities are more likely to be victims of crime disproportionately to their numbers, particularly for ethnic minority women.

Question 9

Two main beliefs as to why ethnic minorities are more likely to be criminals and victims

Answer 9

Structuralism views: They are more criminal

Social constructionist views: The justice system is unfair

Question 10

Prison rates

Answer 10

Ethnic minorities are over represented in prisons

Black British prisoners form about 19% of total prison population, about 7 times higher than would be expected in terms of their presence of the population

Question 11

Victim surveys

Answer 11

Most crime is intra-ethnic - 2007 90% of crimes where victim was white, at least one of the offenders also white.

Limitations:
Rely on victims memory of event. White victims ‘over-identify’ blacks,
Only cover personal crimes
Exclude under 16s - minority ethnic groups contain higher proportion of young
Nothing about white collar

Question 12

Explaining differences in offending

Answer 12

Two main explanations for differences in statistics:

Left realism - the statistics represent real differences in rates of offending

Neo-Marxism - the statistics are social construct from racist labelling and discrimination in the criminal justice system

Question 13

Hall -

Policing the crisis

Answer 13

1970s - moral panic over black 'muggers'. Argues the ruling class are normally rule the subordinate classes.
1970s British capitalism faced a crisis - high inflation and rising unemployment - provoked industrial unrest and strikes. 
The myth of the black mugger served as a scapegoat to distract attention from true cause of problem eg unemployment.

Question 14

Statistics

Answer 14

2012
3% of population are black
14% of all stop and searches are black
7.5% convictions are black

Self report studies put white crime much higher - not put in official statistics