ethnicity, crime and justice

Question 1

Give 2 examples of Black and Asian people being over-represented in official statistics

Answer 1

Black people: 3% of the population, 13% of prison population
Asian people: 6.9% of the population, 8% of prison population

Question 2

Give an example of how White people are under-represented in official statistics

Answer 2

Minister of Justice 2008: Black communities are 7x more likely than white counterparts to be stopped and searched

Question 3

What is a limitation of official statistics on ethnic differences

Answer 3

Stats don’t tell us whether members of one ethnic group are more likely than members of another group to commit the offence, just tells us their involvement in the criminal justice system
E.g. differences may be due to discrimination, court handing sharper sentences

Question 4

What are 2 alternatives to official statistics?

Answer 4

Victim surveys e.g. Crime Survey for England
Self-report studies

Question 5

What do victim surveys ask individuals?
VS show that alot of crime is intra-ethnic, what does this mean?

Answer 5

What crimes they have been victims of and what race it was by
Crime takes place within, rather than between ethnic groups

Question 6

What are 2 limitations of victim surveys?

Answer 6

Exclude crimes by and against organisations, don’t tell us anything about the ethnicity of white collar crimes
Rely on victims memories, evidence suggests that white victims may ‘over-identify’ black suspects

Question 7

What do self-report studies ask individuals to do?
What did the 2003 Offending, Crime and Justice survey find?

Answer 7

Disclose their own dishonest and violent behavior.
40% of white and mixed people had committed an offence
28% black
21% asian

Question 8

2 limitations of self report studies?

Answer 8

Subject to social desirability
Evidence is inconsistent, victim surveys+statistics show the likelihood of black people committing crimes, not the same with self report studies

Question 9

What are the 2 stages ethnic minorities are likely to go through within police racism?

Answer 9

Policing
Stop and search

Question 10

What do Phillips and Bowling argue about policing?

Answer 10

Since the 1970s, there have been many allegations of oppressive policing of minorities, including: mass stop and search operations excessive surveillance, armed raids, police violence

Question 11

When can the police typically stop and search?
Under the Terrorism Act 2000, when can police stop and search vehicles? What does this lead to?
How many more times are black people to be stopped and searched?

Answer 11

Reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing
Whether or not they have reasonable suspicion>Asians are more likely to be stopped and searched
7x

Question 12

What are the 2 reasons for the inappropriate use of stop and search against ethnic groups?

Answer 12

Police racism
Ethnic differences in offending (alternative explanation)

Question 13

Give evidence for police racism, when explaining unfair stop and searches?

Answer 13

The Macpherson Report on the murder by police of black teenager Stephan Lawrence
Concluded that there was institutional racism within the police force

Question 14

What is the alternative explanation for ethnic differences in offending

Answer 14

The disproportionality in stop and searches simply reflects ethnic differences is offending, BUT:
Low discretion stops- police act on relevant info about specific offences e.g. victims description
High discretion stops- police act without specific intelligence e.g. on stereotypes

Question 15

In 2021, how much of the prison population was ethnic minorities

Answer 15

Over 1/4

Question 16

What are the explanations for ethnic differences in offending

Answer 16

Left realism
Gilroy: myth of black criminality
Hall: policing the crisis

Question 17

What do left realists argue about ethnic differences in crime?
What do they see crime as the product of?
What types of crimes do they argue this leads to?

Answer 17

Lea and Young: statistics represent real differences in levels of offending
Relative depravation, subculture and marginalisation
Utilitarian (useful) crime- theft and robbery
Non-utilitarian crime- violence and rioting

Question 18

Left realists Lea and Young acknowledge police racism, but do not believe this explains the differences in statistics
How do they argue this?
Criticise this view

Answer 18

90% of crimes are reported to the police by the public
Black people have higher rates of criminalisation than Asians>police would have to be selective with their racism
Arrest rates for Asians may be lower than blacks because they have different police stereotypes
E.g. blacks=dangerous Asians=passive e.g. 9/11

Question 19

What does Gilroy argue?

Answer 19

The idea of black criminality is a myth, created by racist stereotypes and that Asian and Black people are not any more criminal than everyone else
Police racism>ethnic groups criminalised>high in the official statistics

Question 20

What does Gilroy see crime by ethnic minorities as a response to?

Answer 20

Political resistance against a racist society
Most Asian and Black people originated in former British colonies>anti-colonialist struggles>resist oppression and racism>struggle to defend themselves

Question 20

How do Lea and Young critisise Gilroy’s views? (2)

Answer 20

First generation immigrants were very law-abiding, unlikely they passed down a tradition of anti-colonial struggle
Most crime is intra-ethnic, can’t be seen as a colonial struggle

Question 21

What happened in the 1970s according to Hall et al?

Answer 21

There was a moral panic over black muggers
This served an interest to capitalism as they say a crisis (^ inflation, unemployment) > needed to use force to maintain control
^ in mugging became associated with black youth to police and the media>scape goat>divide WC on racism>weakens capitalist opposition

Question 22

What is a critisism of Hall et al’s moral panic?
How do left realists criticise them?

Answer 22

They do not show how the capitalist crisis led to moral panic or provide evidence that public were panicking or blaming black youth
People’s fears of mugging is realistic

Question 23

When does racist victimisation occur?
What brought this to greater attention to the public?

Answer 23

When an individual is a target because of their race, ethnicity or religion
Murder of Stephen Lawrence

Question 23

What is the extent of racist victimisation (statistic)?
What is the risk of facing racist victimisation?
How can this be explained, other than ethnicity?

Answer 23

60,000 racially aggravated offences per year in England and Wales (most go unreported!)
Mixed ethnic groups has the highest risk (20%), compared to white people (13%)
Other factors e.g. violent crime factors like being a young male

Question 24

What is a limitation of the extent and risk of victimisation?

Answer 24

Don’t capture the victims experience of it e.g. psychological and physical impact

Question 25

What is police victimisation?
How does Macpherson give evidence to this?
What have others found?

Answer 25

Failure to record and investigate incidents properly because of protection
Concluded that the investigation into Stephen Lawrence had ‘professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers’
Deeply ingrained racist attitudes and beliefs amongst individual officers