Explaining the differences in offending

Question 1

Outline left realist explanations for differences in offending

Lea & young

Answer 1

Left realists Lea & Young argue ethnic differences in statistics reflect the real differences of offending by different ethnic groups

Left realists see crime as a product relative deprivation, subculture & marginalisation & economic exclusion of minority ethnic groups who have higher level of poverty, unemployement and poor housing

Lea & young-delinquent subcultures by unemployed black males produces high levels of utilitarian crimes such as theft & robbery as a means of coping with relative deprivation & because groups are marginalised & have no organisation to represent their interests their frustration is liable to produce non-utilitarian crime such as violence and rioting

Question 1

2 main explanations for ethnic differences in statistics:

Answer 1

• Left realists- The statistics represent real differences in rate off offending
• Neo-Marxists - The statistics are a social construct resulting from racist labelling & discrimination in the criminal justice system

Question 2

Outline Neo-Marxist explanation for differences in offending

Gilroy

Answer 2

Gilroy & hall et al illustrate the vie wthat offcial statist cis are socially construcrted and dont reflect relaity

Gilroy: The myth of Black criminality

Gilroy argues that the idea that black criminality is a myth created by racist stereotypes of African Caribbean & Asian people in reality these groups are no more criminal than any other

However due to police & criminal justice system acting on these racist steotypes, minority ethnic groups come to be criminalised & appear in greater numbers in offical statistics

In Gilroys view Minority ethnic group crime can be seen as a form of political resistance against a racist society & argues that WC crime is a political act of resistance to capitalism

They argue that Black & Asian people in the UK originated in the former british colonies where anti-imperialist struggles taught them how to resist oppression e.g through riots & demonstrations when they found themselves facing racism in Britain they adopted the same form of struggle to defend themselves

Question 3

Evaluations of Left realism

Lea & young

Answer 3

Lea & young have been criticised for their views on the role of police racism.
e.g arrest rates for asian people may be lower than for black people not because less likely to offend but because police stereotype 2 groups differently by seeing black people as dangerous & asian people as passive

Question 4

Evaluations of Neo-marxism ( Gilroy)

Answer 4

Lea & young (left realists) criticise Gilroy

• First generation immigrants in 1950s & 60s were law abiding so unlikley passed down a tradition of anti colonial struggle to their children
• Most crime is intra-ethnic so it cant be seen as anti-colonial struggle against racism , Lea & young argue neo marxist Gilroy romanticises street crime as revoltionary when its not
• Asian crime rates are similar to or lower than for whites if Gilroy was right than police are only racist towards black people & not Asians which seems unlikely

Question 5

Outline Neo marxism : Hall (policing the crisis)

Answer 5

Hall adopted a neo-marxist perspective -they argue that 1970s saw a moral panic over Black ‘muggers’ that served the interest of capitalism

Neo-Marxism draws on aspects of Marxist and Interactionist theory in order to explain the criminalisation of ethnic minorities by the media and the state.

The classic study from this perspective is Stuart Hall’s Policing the Crisis (1979) in which he examined the moral panic that developed over the crime of mugging in the 1970s. Despite sensationalist newspaper reports that claimed there was an increase in mugging, particularly among young black men in London, Hall’s own research showed that it was actually growing more slowly than in the previous decade

Hall argued that a moral panic over black criminality at the time created a diversion away from the wider economic crisis – ‘black youths out of control’ being the headlines rather than ‘Capitalism in Crisis’ – hence the title of the book ‘Policing the Crisis’ (of Capitalism).

Question 6

A03 of neo-marxism ( Hall)

Answer 6

• Stuart Hall seems to contradict himself – On one hand he claims that black crime is exaggerated; on the other hand he states that crime is bound to rise because of factors such as unemployment. If crime rates do rise, then it isn’t a moral panic but a real event.
• The association between criminality and black youth has continued since the economic crisis of the 1970s, so it’s not clear that this is the ultimate cause of the ‘moral panic’.