Ethnicity's relation to crime

Question 1

What do Lea and Young argue?

Answer 1

The views that certain ethnic groups commit more crimes than others and the role of fascism in the criminal justice system, are not mutually exclusive

Question 2

What does Anderson say that police assume about white and black people?

Answer 2

White people= middle-class, trustworthy
Black people= lower class, criminal

Question 3

Who found that there was a difference in sentencing based on ethnicities, particularly race, and found that black men were 5% more likely to be imprisoned than white men?

Answer 3

Hood

Question 4

Who argued that police stop, harass, and abuse young black males on a regular basis on the street, even though most have done nothing to deserve it?

Answer 4

Anderson

Question 5

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

Answer 5

20.8 months for black
14.9 months for white

Question 6

What did Hall consider?

Answer 6

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

Question 7

What is the Scarman report of 1982?

Answer 7

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

Question 8

What did the McPherson report conclude?

Answer 8

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

Question 9

What does Hall argue about the police investigation into Stephan Lawrence?

Answer 9

It was flawed but unsurprising. There is institutional racism in the Metropolitan police force.

Question 10

Who supports Hall’s conclusions?

Answer 10

Phillips and Bowling → ethnic minority neighbourhoods were still overpoliced with military style methods despite the McPherson report

Question 11

What is institutional racism?

Answer 11

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

Question 12

What did Waddington et al argue that the higher levels of stopping and searching of young black and asian males did not show?

Answer 12

Did not show institutional racism racism, instead these 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 13

Between 1993 and 2003, what was the prison population increase for:
* White people
* Black people
* Asian people
And how does this show institutional racism?

Answer 13

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

Question 14

What is ‘police culture’/’cop culture’/’police occupational culture’?

Answer 14

Refers to a 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 15

What key term refers to the attitudes and values exhibited by the police in their off-duty socialising?

Answer 15

‘Canteen culture’

Question 16

What did Smith and Grey’s report for the Policy Studies Institute highlight?

Answer 16

The explicit and accepted racist language of police officers

Question 17

What did Holdaway find in his research on police culture, when he was a serving officer in the ‘70s?

Answer 17

‘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 18

Who found that inappropriate use of discretion has led to over and under-policing of particular types of offenders and victims?

Answer 18

Chan

Question 19

What does Bhilox argue?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Who argued that racism in the criminal justice system leads some black men to reoffend as a defiant reaction to societal rejection?

Answer 20

Glynn

Question 21

What is ‘differential deployment’?

Answer 21

Concentrating policing on areas where the targeted reside

Question 22

What is ‘methodological suspicion’?

Answer 22

Routinely suspecting only a limited proportion of the population

Question 23

What did Scraton find?

Answer 23

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 24

Summarise what Gilroy says

Answer 24

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 25

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

Answer 25

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

Question 26

Who discusses the ‘paradox of inclusion’ in which there’s a desire to be part of mainstream culture being blocked by poverty, and this results in crime ?

Answer 26

Nightingale

Question 27

What did FitzGerald and Sibitt argue about crime within Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups?

Answer 27

These groups may have very different social class and cultural backgrounds, which have long masked different crime patterns within these groups

Question 28

Who do Lea and Young challenge?

Answer 28

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

Question 29

What will racial discrimination lead to?

Answer 29

An acute awareness of ‘unnecessary injustices’ and unemployment

Question 30

What do Lea and young discuss about the intersection of race and crime?

Answer 30

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 31

What do Bowling, Parmar and Phillips say?

Answer 31

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 32

What did the report from the Home Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons in 2007 conclude?

Answer 32

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 33

Who suggests that the stereotype of the ‘passive Asian’ has given way to a climate of ‘Islamophobia’ following 9/11 and terrorist scares?

Answer 33

Abbas

Question 34

What does Palmer challenge?

Answer 34

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

Question 35

What have current concerns about ‘radicalisation’ led to?

Answer 35

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

Question 36

What did Pitts find that Britain has witnessed a rise of since the 1990s and why?

Answer 36

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 37

What do Lea and Young say about moral panics?

Answer 37

Criticise moral panics surrounding ‘black crime’, i.e. the way the media have focused on mugging, and linked it to ethnicity

Question 38

What do Lea and Young challenge in the Sun newspaper?

Answer 38

Headline= ‘BLACK CRIME SHOCK: blacks carried out twice as many muggings as whites in London last year’

Question 39

What does Gunter say about subcultures and crime amongst young black males in East London?

Answer 39

Highlights significance of ‘road culture; and ‘badness’ on young black people’s identities, experiences and life choices