ethnicity and crime Flashcards
What do prison crimes show about black and asian people in prison?
They are overrepresented
Black people make up 3% of the population but 13.15 of prison stats
Asian people make up 6% of the population but 7.7% of prison stats
What do police stats tell us about stop and searches?
Black people are 3 times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police?
What do court stats tell us about ethnic custodial sentencing?
Ethnic minorities are more likely to be given a custodial sentence in comparison to Ethnic majorities
What are the 2 alternative sources of statistics?
Victim surveys and self-report studies
How do victim studies work and why is it beneficial?
Ran by the Crime Survey for England and Wales
Asks individuals to say what crimes they have been a victim of (usually in the past 12 months)
We can gain information about ethnicity of the criminal and also what type of crime was being committed.
What ethnicity is overrepresented in those identified as the criminal by victims?
Black people
What do Victim surveys show us about crime and ethnicity?
That a lot of crime in intra-ethnic. this means that its being committed within the ethnic groups rather than between them
What are the limitations of victim surveys?
- They rely on victims recall of events which may not always be truthful
(Phillips and Bowling point out that evidence suggest that white victims may over-identify black people as the offenders even when they are not sure.) - They only cover personal crimes which makes up about 5% of all crimes
- They exclude ethnicity in white collar crime made by corporations and businesses.
How do self-report studies work?
They ask individuals to disclose their own dishonest and violent behaviour
What did Graham and Bowling find about self report studies
In their sample of 2,5000, they found that Black people (43%) and White people (44%) had similar rates in offending while Indians (30%), Pakistanis (28%) and Bangladeshis (13%) had lower rates.
What did Sharp and Budd note that the Offending, crime and justice survey of 12,000 people find?
What whites and those with mixed ethnicities were more likely to say they had committed a crime (around 40%) , followed by black people (28%) and Asians (21%)
How many self-report studies has home office conducted since the early 1990s and what did they find?
Nine
Found that 27% males of mixed ethnicity said that they have used drugs (mostly cannabis) in comparison to both 16% of black and white males and 5% of Asian males
Also found Class A drugs like heroine and cocaine are higher among white people (6%) than black people (5%) or Asian people (1%)
