Ethnicity and Crime

Question 1

Lea and Young

Answer 1

• Certain ethnic groups commit more crimes than others and the role of fascism in the criminal justice system, are not mutually exclusive

Question 2

Anderson

Answer 2

Police assume:
- White people= middle-class, trustworthy
- Black people= lower class, criminal
- Police stop, harass, and abuse young black males on a regular basis on the street, even though most have done nothing to deserve it

Question 3

Hood

Answer 3

• There was a difference in sentencing based on ethnicities, particularly race
• Black men were 5% more likely to be imprisoned than white men

Question 4

What was the average custodial sentence length for black and white people?

Answer 4

• 20.8 months for black
• 14.9 months for white

Question 5

Hall

Answer 5

• Considers the issue of policing and race relations in the two decades between the Scarman report of 1982 and the McPherson report of 1999.

Question 6

Scarman report 1982

Answer 6

• The official response to racial violence and rioting in some British cities in the early 1980s

Question 7

McPherson report

Answer 7

Details on the official inquiry into the murder of the black teenager Stephan Lawrence in 1993 and the subsequent police investigation

Question 8

Hall on the police investigation of Stephan Lawrence

Answer 8

• It was flawed but unsurprising
• Found institutional racism in the Metropolitan police force

Question 9

Phillip and Bowling

Support Hall

Answer 9

• Ethnic minority neighbourhoods were still overpoliced with military style methods despite the McPherson report

Question 10

Insitutional racism

Answer 10

• Racism within the social processes and practices of an institution- widely applied to the police

Question 11

Waddington

Answer 11

• Higher levels of stopping and searching of young black and asian males did not show institutional racism - Ethnic backgrounds just have more ‘availability’ in public places
• The study showed they were not treated disproportionally by the police as their stop and search rate was in line with ‘available population’

Question 12

Prison population increase between 1993-2003

Answer 12

White- 48%
Black- 138%
Asian- 73%

Question 13

‘Police culture’/’cop culture’/’police occupational culture

Answer 13

• The shared set of norms, values, attitudes, and practices, which develop amongst the police, and which affect the way in which they carry out their duties

Question 14

‘Canteen culture’

Answer 14

• The attitudes and values exhibited by the police in their off-duty socialising

Question 15

Smith and Grey policy studies institute report

Answer 15

• Highlights the explicit and accepted racist language of police officers

Question 16

Holdaway- police culture research

Answer 16

• ‘Racialisation’ of policing, arguing that routine and mundane police work and relationships may take on a racial ‘framing’, by which people/events are seen in ways that prioritise race when it is irrelevant. And ignores race when it is relevant

Question 17

Chan

Answer 17

• Inappropriate use of discretion has led to over and under-policing of particular types of offenders and victims

Question 18

Bhilox

Answer 18

• Most policing is directed at the excluded members of society, who are often poor, young, and black

Question 19

Glynn

Answer 19

• Racism in the criminal justice system leads some black men to reoffend as a defiant reaction to societal rejection

Question 20

‘Differential deployment’

Answer 20

• Concentrating policing on areas where the targeted reside

Question 21

‘Methodological suspicion’

Answer 21

• Routinely suspecting only a limited proportion of the population

Question 22

Scraton

Answer 22

• Sees the police as an occupying force imposed on the working class/ethnic minority communities
• They impose the law which reflects ruling class interests, and black criminality= culture of resistance

Question 23

Gilroy

Answer 23

• The history of race relations is a significant factor in explaining criminality amongst some ethnic groups eg British Asia and the African Carribeans are former British colonies, which experienced cultural erosion

Question 24

Why were crime levels amongst British Asians disproportionately lower than those of white people?

Answer 24

• Due to strong family values and socialisation within the family, and them not fitting with the police stereotype of criminals

Question 25

Nightingale

Answer 25

• ‘Paradox of inclusion’ in which there’s a desire to be part of mainstream culture being blocked by poverty, and this results in crime

Question 26

FitzGerald and Sibitt

Answer 26

• Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups have very different social class and cultural backgrounds, which have long masked different crime patterns within these groups

Question 27

Lea and Young challenge…

Answer 27

• Those who dismiss any link between race and crime as ‘merely’ evidence of racism in the criminal justice system

Question 28

What does racial discrimination lead to?

Answer 28

• An acute awareness of ‘unnecessary injustices’ and unemployment

Question 29

Lea and Young intersection of race and crime

Answer 29

• The ways in which a minority of the oppressed groups in any industrialised society are ‘brutalised’ into criminality, so race and crime combine to explain patterns in offending

Question 30

Bowling, Parmar, Phillips

Answer 30

• The ‘pliability’ of Asian stereotypes demonstrates that previous conformist perceptions of Asians, particularly Muslims, have altered
• Stereotypes assumed to explain law-abiding behaviour, relating to strong sense of community, family, and religious values, which promote crime/ deviance

Question 31

Report from the Home Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons in 2007 concludes…

Answer 31

• A range of factors contributed to high levels of criminality amongst black youths- including poverty, educational underachievement, school exclusions, family conflict and lack of positive role models (single parent families)

Question 32

Abbas

Answer 32

• The stereotype of the ‘passive Asian’ has given way to a climate of ‘Islamophobia’ following 9/11 and terrorist scares

Question 33

Palmer challenges…

Answer 33

• Arguments which see race as a secondary factor to social class, suggesting that they place too little emphasis of racial discrimination

Question 34

Radicalisation concerns led to…

Answer 34

• Claims about targeting of young Muslims by the police, and harsher punishments being issued by courts

Question 35

Pitts

Answer 35

• Rise in violent youth gangs and associated gang-related street street culture as young people have found themselves ‘immobilised’ at the bottom of the economic ladder, marginalised from mainstream society

Question 36

Lea and Young on moral panics

Answer 36

• Criticise moral panics surrounding ‘black crime’, i.e. the way the media have focused on mugging, and linked it to ethnicity
• Challenge the headline= ‘BLACK CRIME SHOCK: blacks carried out twice as many muggings as whites in London last year’

Question 37

Gunter

Answer 37

• Subcultures and crime amongst young black males in East London
  Highlights significance of ‘road culture; and ‘badness’ on young black people’s identities, experiences and life choices