Social Distribution of Ethnicity

Question 1

What crime is recorded?

Answer 1

• Official crime surveys hold prison and court records
• However not all crime is recorded or reported
• There is a dark figure of crime which is not included in official statistics meaning they are not trustworth

Question 2

What are some reasons that crime goes unreported?

Answer 2

• There are multiple reasons that crime goes unreported such as unawareness, illegality or fear

Question 3

Why is some crime not recorded?

Answer 3

• Moore, Aiken and Chapman talk about the police triage which are factors of crime that goes unreported such as social status, severity and discretion

Question 4

What are trends related to ethnicity? (Black People)

Answer 4

• Black people are overrepresented in the system
• Black people are a minority in the population but a third percentage within prisons
• Black people were 3x more likely to be arrested than white people
• Afro Caribbeans were more likely to be stopped and searched, cautioned by the police, to be arrested and receive a custodial sentence

Question 5

What are trends related to ethnicity? (Asian People)

Answer 5

• Asians were likely to be stopped and searched for drugs, face charges rather than receive a caution and more likely to receive a custodial sentence
• Asian people are overrepresented in the system but to a lesser extent

Question 6

What is stop and search?

Answer 6

• A police officer has powers to stop and search you if they have reasonable grounds or if approved by a senior officer
• A higher proportion of black individuals received the principal outcome

Question 7

What did Phillips and Bowling argue?

Answer 7

• There has been many allegations made about the oppressive policing of ethnic minority communities however do not end in arrest
• Many of these communities feel overpoliced and under protected

Question 8

What is the Locality Theory? (Waddington)

Answer 8

• Certain areas are more densely populated with ethnic minorities which explains the high stop and search statistics, they tend to live in zones of transition where crime rates are higher due to a lack of social cohesion
• The zone of transition has high crime rates and ethnic minority
• Areas of social disorganization produce delinquent subcultures
• There is no informal or formal social control which leads to delinquent subcultures
• It also leads to differential association which is the idea that everyone else is doing it
• However, there is informal social control in their own ethnic groups

Question 9

What is demographics? (Morris)

Answer 9

• BAME groups contain a disproportionate number of young people in compared to white ethnic majority, this explains why ethnic minority criminality is more likely to commit crimes
• However this is a statistical illusion as they cannot determine the age of the offender

Question 10

What do Neo-Marxists believe about statistics?

Answer 10

• Statistics are misleading

Question 11

(Neo-Marxist) What does Gilroy argue?

Answer 11

• Gilroy argues that black criminality is a myth which is created by racist stereotypes
• A racist criminal justice system means they appear in greater number in official statistics
• Young black men are targeted by the media and the police
• Black crime is different as it is a conscious continuation, this is seen when West Indies resisted oppression by protesting and riots. When black people face racism, they adopted the same form strategies but their political struggle was demonized by the State
• Crime is therefore a political and revolutionary struggle in response to inequality and discrimination
• This struggle was then criminalized by the state especially the media which therefore means they do not commit crime but their behaviour is criminalized more

Question 12

What is an evaluation of Neo-Marxism?

Answer 12

• How most crime is intra ethnic meaning it is one ethnicity committing crime to another
• It romanticizes criminals suggesting there political activists
• Also most crime is reported by the public rather than the public suggesting that they are not racist

Question 13

What do Labelling theorists believe about statistics?

Answer 13

• The statistics are misleading as a result of selective law enforcement

Question 14

What do labelling theorists believe about police?

Answer 14

• Police are apart of racist canteen culture, they are not racist alone but reinforce stereotypes when acts on duty

Question 15

(Labelling) = Phillips and Bowling argue that racial discrimination is shown in multiple ways. What are the five ways?

Answer 15

1. Stop and Search
2. Institutional Racism
3. Lack of sufficient evidence
4. Discrimination of sentencing
5. An overrepresentation within the prison system so therefore more likely to be stereotyped

Question 16

(Labelling) = How does stop and search show racial discrimination?

Answer 16

• Black and Asian people fit the stereotype of troublemakers, therefore they are targeted for heavier policing
• This did not often lead to arrests, however respond by the self-fulfilling prophecy

Question 17

(Labelling) = What is institutional racism?

Answer 17

• Police were identified as being institutionally racist
• This was seen in McPherson Report
• However they have made more of an effort to deal with racism and recruit more ethnic minorities

Question 18

What do Right Realists argue about ethnic crimes?

Answer 18

• Triple Quandary
• Sewell identified three risk factors which could be responsible for the high levels of crime amongst black boys

Question 19

(Right-Realist) = What are the three factors for higher crime amongst black boys?

Answer 19

1. Lack of father figure = Matrifocal lone parent families meaning boys look to their community for their role models such as gang leaders
2. Negative experiences of white culture = Black boys are disaffected by their experience of school and employer racism
3. Media = Media influence of hip hop believes that status can be achieved in two ways such as acquisition of status symbol and the construction of hyper masculinity

Question 20

What is an evaluation of right realism?

Answer 20

• However, there is a rise of positive black role models
• There is no link between parenthood and criminality
• Black crime tends to victimize black people

Question 21

What does Hirschi argue about ethnic crime (Functionalism)?

Answer 21

• Social Cultural theory, Hirschi
• Young people regardless of their ethnicity commit crime due to a lack of social control of attachment, commitment, involvement and belief in their lives
• This can be criticized for being an explanation of age difference rather than ethnicity