Ethnicity & Crime - 4.5

Question 1

3 main ways of measuring criminality among ethnic groups

Answer 1

> Official Statistis
Victim Surveys
Self-Report Studies

Question 2

Official Stats - Ethnicity & Criminalisation

Answer 2

> BAME overrepresented in CJS, despite being lowest percentage of population

> Black 7x + likely to be stopped & searched, 5x + likely to be in prison

Question 3

Victim Surveys - Ethnicity & Criminalisation

Answer 3

> Crime often intra-ethnic

> Ask people to identify ethnicity of person who done crime vs them

> e.g. for mugging, black more likely to be identified

Question 4

Criticisms of Victim Surveys

Answer 4

> Over identify black & only look at personal crimes

> Exclude under 16’s - BAME contain + proportion of young people

> No focus on white collar crime

Question 5

Self-Report Studies - Graham & Bowling

Answer 5

> Black & white had equal rates of offending, Asian had lower rates

> Goes against the stereotype of black being more likely than whites to offend

Question 6

Sharp & Budd (Self-Report Studies)

Answer 6

> Those from mixed ethnic origins more likely to self-report crimes

Question 7

Examples of Racism in Criminal Justice System (CJS)

Answer 7

> Policing
> Stop & Search
> Arrests & Cautions
> Prosecution 
> Trial
> Sentencing & Prison

Question 8

Phillips and Bowling - Policing

Answer 8

> EM are “over-policed & under protected & oppressed

> e.g. mass stop & search, surveillance etc.

> Fail to respond to racist violence

Question 9

Stop & Search - Examples of Racism in CJS

Answer 9

> Black people more likely to be stopped and searched than white, only need reasonable suspicion.

> But only few stops result in arrests, also more Asian being stopped due to Terrorism Act (2000)

Question 10

Canteen Culture (Police Racism)

Answer 10

Police Officers not racist themselves but when together can reinforce stereotypes then acted on duty.

Question 11

Macpherson Report - (Police Racism)

Answer 11

Institutional Racism in police force in their handling of murder of Stephen Lawerence

Question 12

Arrests & Cautions - Examples of Racism in CJS

Answer 12

> Asians less likely than white to get cautioned.

> EM more likely than whites to deny offence

Question 13

Prosecution

Answer 13

> CPS more likely to drop cases against EM compared to white
Evidence given is often weaker & based on stereotypes of EM as criminals

Question 14

Trial - Examples of Racism in CJS

Answer 14

> EM more likely to use trial in crown court rather than in magistrates due to mistrust of their impartiality (want a jury)

> But Crown Court can give harsher sentences

Question 15

Convictions - Examples of Racism in CJS

Answer 15

> EM less likely to be found guilty, due to police/CPS discrimination

> Bring weaker cases vs EM, so thrown out by courts

Question 16

Sentencing - Examples of Racism in CJS

Answer 16

> Larger jail sentences given to Black offenders rather white or Asian

> White or Asian more likely to get community sentences

> Due to differences in seriousness of offence/prior convictions.

Question 17

Hood - Sentencing

Answer 17

> Even if seriousness of offence & prior convictions are considered

> Black men 5% more likely to get jail sentences longer than white men

Question 18

Hudson & Bramall - Pre-Sentence Reports

Answer 18

> Harsher sentences due to PSR written by probation officers, allows for discrimination

> Reports on Asian less comprehensive & less remorseful than whites

> Bias due to demonising of Muslims, due to 9/11

Question 19

Prison - Examples of Racism in CJS

Answer 19

> Black 5x more likely to be in prison than white & Black & Asian usually serve higher sentences

> EM less likely to be granted bail

Question 20

LR - Explanations for Statistical Differences in Offending

Answer 20

> Black more likely to be criminals due to alienation & marginalisation & relative deprivation

Question 21

Criticisms of Left Realism

Answer 21

> Rates for Asians lower due to police stereotypes of Blacks as aggressive & Asians as passive

> Stop & search for Asians more likely due to 9/11

Question 22

Gilroy - Myth of Black Criminality - Neo-Marxism

Answer 22

> Black not more criminal than other groups, but CJS act on racist stereotypes, so more likely to be criminalised

Question 23

Gilroy - EM crime as Political Resistance

Answer 23

> Black people in UK originate in former British colonies & anti-colonial struggles taught them to resist oppression e.g. riots & demonstrations

> When facing racism in UK, they used same means to defend themselves

> But political struggle was criminalised by state.

Question 24

Lea & Young - Criticisms of Gilroy

Answer 24

> But 1st generation immigrants were law-abiding, colonial struggle wasn’t passed down, most crime is intra-ethnic

> Romanticises crime as revolutionary, but it’s not

> Asian crime rates are less or the same as white, seems police are only racist towards Black & not Asian which is not true

Question 25

Hall et al - Policing the Crisis

Answer 25

> Economic recession in 70s caused a rise in unemployment, led to civil unrest e.g. mass strikes

> So capitalism appeared to be failing gov needed a scapegoat to divert attention away from this

> Recession leads to further economic marginalisation of Black youth leading to increase in robbery

Question 26

Hall et al - Policing the Crisis (Role of Media)

Answer 26

> Led to new moral panic on robbery by media, done by Black youth

> Response was to put police in areas with higher crime which led to more arrests, causing more panic reported by media

> So attention is only on black criminality, not problems of capitalism, causing crime in 1st place

Question 27

Downes & Rock - Criticisms of Hall

Answer 27

> Contradictory, claims black crime is exaggerated, but also says it’s bound to rise due to unemployment

> If crime rates increase it’s not moral panic but a real event

Question 28

Fitzgerald - Neighbourhood Factors

Answer 28

> Street robberies higher in poor areas & when deprived young people come into contact with affluent groups

> Young Black people were more likely to live in poor areas, but poor white people in these areas were also more likely to do street crime

> Ethnicity not the cause

Question 29

Sharp & Budd - Getting Caught

Answer 29

> Black people were more likely than white people to be arrested, as they’d done crimes where vicitms can identify them e.g. robbery

> & being more likely to be excluded from school & association with criminals raised visibility to police

Question 30

Racist Victimisation with example

Answer 30

> Individual selected as target, due to race, ethnicity or religion

> e.g. racist murder of Stephen Lawerence & Macpherson Report

Question 31

Extent & Risk of Victimisation

Answer 31

> Police recorded 54K racist incidents in UK in 2015, but much is underreported

> BCS estimates their were 89K, but only small number of people are prosecuted

> EM at more risk of being victims of crime

Question 32

Responses to Victimisation

Answer 32

> EM active in responding to victimisation

> e.g. fireproof doors, letterboxes, self-defence campaigns etc

> Due to under protection by police e.g. Lawerence case found evidence of incompetence, institutional racism & failure of leadership