Factors of offending

Question 1

How is gender related to offenders according to statistics?

Answer 1

• Males make up around 85% of arrests (2019)
• Females accounted for 4% of the prison population (2019)

Question 2

How is ethnicity related to offenders according to statistics?

Answer 2

• Black people were stopped and searched 7x more than white people in 2009/10

Question 3

How is ethnicity related to offenders according to general findings?

Answer 3

• Phillips & Bowling point that the Crown Prosecution service is more likely to drop cases put forward by the police involving black suspects, showing that the police charge black people more frequently based on inadequate evidence.
• The Association of Chief Police Officers in 2008 found despite newspaper headlines linking migrants to crime, offending rates among migrants from Europe were in line with general population.

Question 4

How is age related to offenders according to general findings?

Answer 4

• McVie found data is often grouped into age bands which may hide more precise trends. e.g. Home Office Data often group everyone over 21 so they cannot identify trends in adult offending.

Question 5

How is social class related to offenders according to statistics?

Answer 5

67% of the prison population had been unemployed before imprisonment.

Question 6

How is social class related to offenders according to general findings?

Answer 6

• Social Exclusion unit found that many prisoners have a history of social exclusion. They were more likely to have grown up in care, poverty, or have a family member convicted.
• However self-report studies show the difference between offending rates for working and middle classes is not as high as figures suggest. Class bias justice process.