ethnicity, crime and justice

Question 1

statistics

Answer 1

black people make up 3% of the population but account for 8% of convictions and 13% of the prison population

white people make up 87% of the population but account for 73% of convictions

Question 2

why might official statistics not be a good measure of how much crime different ethnic groups commit?

Answer 2

they don’t tell us whether members of one ethnic group are more likely than members of another group to commit an offence in the first place, they just tell us about involvement with the criminal justice system

Question 3

alternative sources of statistics - victim surveys

Answer 3

ask individuals to say what crimes they have been a victim of

we gain information about the ethnicity of the person who committed a crime

in a case of mugging, black people are significantly over identified as offenders

show that a great deal of crime is intra ethnic

Question 4

evaluation of victim surveys

Answer 4

rely on victims memory of the event - philips & bowling found that white victims many over identify black suspects, saying that the offender was black when they are not sure

only cover personal crimes which make up only 1/5th of all crimes

exclude under 10s - minority ethnic groups contain a higher proportion of people

exclude corporate crime

Question 5

alternative sources of statistics - self report studies

Answer 5

ask individuals to disclose their own violent and and dishonest behaviour

graham and bowling - found that white and black rates of offending were very similar (44% and 43%)

may be unrepresentative because they only tell us about the ethnicity of a small proportion of offenders which may not representative of offenders in general

sharp & budd - 40% of white people are most likely to admit to offending, followed by 285 of black people

27% of mixed ethnicity people said they had used drugs compared to 16% of black people

official statistics and victim surveys point to the likelihood of higher rates of offending by black people, this is not borne out by self report studies

Question 6

policing

Answer 6

philips & bowling - since the 1970s, there have been many allegations of oppressive policing of ethnic minority groups

Question 7

stop and search

Answer 7

members of ethnic minority groups are 9 times more likely to be stopped and searched - police can do this if they have ‘reasonable suspicion’

black people were 4 times more likely to have force used against them and 5 times more likely to have taser devices used against them

philips & bowling - members of these communities are more likely to think they are overpoliced and under protected and to have limited faith in the police

Question 8

arrests and cautions

Answer 8

black people are 3 times more likely to be arrested

less likely than white people to get a caution

one reason for this may be that black people are more likely to deny the offence and to exercise their right to legal advice

Question 9

prosecution and trial

Answer 9

bowling & philips - more likely to drop cases against black people due to weak evidence

when cases do go ahead, black people are more likely to elect for a trial before jury due to mistrust of magistrates, however crown courts can impose more severe sentences if convicted

Question 10

convictions and sentencing

Answer 10

black people are less likely to be found guilty - suggests discrimination

hood - even when factors such as differences in severity of offences, or in defendants previous convictions, black men were 55 more likely to receive a custodial sentence and were given on average 3 months longer than white men

Question 11

pre sentence reports

Answer 11

hudson & bramhall - psr’s allow for unwitting discrimination, found that reports on asian offenders were less comprehensive and suggested they were less remorseful than white offenders

Question 12

prison

Answer 12

1/4 of the population are from minority ethnic groups

black people are 4 times more likely to go to prison

Question 13

left realism

Answer 13

lea and young - argue that ethnic differences in statistics show real differences in the levels of offending.

left realists see crime as the product of relative deprivation, subculture and marginalisation - they argue that racism has led to marginalisation and economic exclusion of ethnic minorities, who are likely to face poor housing and unemployment.

media’s emphasis on consumerism promotes relative deprivation - individuals turn to utilitarian crimes.

evidence of this is the delinquent subcultures, by the young, unemployed black males - they commit utilitarian crimes, such as theft and robbery, as a means of coping with relative deprivation, thus they become frustrated and turn to violence and rioting.

lea and young acknowledge the police may act of racist intuition, but this cannot explain official statistics - 90% of crimes reported to the police come from members of the public.

it we cannot explain the ethnic difference in crime- e.g why blacks commit some crimes and why whites do too.

asians may have a low arrest rate, but not because they are less likely to offend, but because police see them as passive and blacks as dangerous.

Question 14

criticisms of left realism

Answer 14

asians may have a low arrest rate, but not because they are less likely to offend, but because police see them as passive and blacks as dangerous.

these stereotypes have changed since 9/11 because police now regard asian people as dangerous which explains rising criminalisation rates for this group

Question 15

neo marxism

Answer 15

marxists argue official statistics do not provide ‘real facts’, nor do they show reality - they are socially constructed, because they are based on the stereotypes and discrimination of ethnic minorities.

Question 16

neo marxism:

gilroy - the myth of black criminality

Answer 16

argues black criminality is a myth based on racist stereotypes of african/caribbean communities. official statistics are only high because police act of stereotypes of blacks - ethnic minority crime is seen as political resistance against the police & their brutality.

gilroy’s approach is similar to critical criminology - sees working class crime as resistance against capitalism.

asians and blacks have resistant mind-set to oppression, but the police criminalise their defence.

Question 17

evaluation of gilroy

Answer 17

first generation immigrants were very law abiding, so it is unlikely that they passed down a tradition of anti colonial struggle to their children

most crime is intra ethnic, so it can’t be seen as a struggle against racism. lea and young argue that gilroy romanticises street crime as somehow revolutionary

asian crime rates are similar to or lower than whites. if gilroy was right, then the police are only racist towards balck people and not asians which seems unlikely

Question 18

neo marxism:

hall et al - policing the crisis

Answer 18

argues the 1970’s moral panic of ‘black muggers’ serves the interest of capitalism - hall argues in britain 1970’s, capitalism was rising, however there was unemployment, ruling class needed to deal with societal problems.

argues moral panic, mugging and crisis were linked - the myth of black muggers served as a scapegoat to distract the attention of the real cause of problems - unemployment.

by presenting the black youth as dangerous to society, the moral panic divided the working class racially - blacks were marginalised & this caused further financial crimes.

Question 19

evaluation of hall

Answer 19

downes and rock - hall is inconsistent in claiming that black street crime was not rising but also claiming that it was rising because of unemployment

doesn’t show how the capitalist crisis led to a moral panic, nor do they provide evidence that the public were in fact panicking or blaming crime on black youth

left realists - inner city residents’ fear about mugging are not panicky, but realistic

Question 20

neighbourhood - fitzgerald

Answer 20

focused on the role of neighbourhood factors in explaining crime rates in black youths and street robbery.

they found that rates were higher in very poor areas.

where very deprived black youths came into contact with affluent groups, that is when they were more likely to commit crimes.

however, this applies to very poor whites too - they would be twice as likely to commit these types of crime.

thus, ethnicity was not always the cause of crime - however, black people may be more likely to live in poor areas, because of racial discrimination in housing and job market.

Question 21

getting caught - sharp and budd

Answer 21

some groups run the risk of getting caught.

argue that black offenders are more likely to get caught, than
white offenders.

blacks are also more likely to get arrested than whites.

this is because blacks were more likely to commit robberies, where the public can identify their faces.

blacks also more likely to be excluded from school and known for committing crimes. these factors raised their visibility to the authorities/police.