Topic 4b The role of the police and courts in the social construction of crime

Question 1

Intro

Answer 1

It is often assumed, particularly by the mass media, that the official criminal statistics (OCS) are collected in a reliable way and that they are valid in the picture of crime and criminality that they present. However interpretivist sociologists argue that the OCS are of limited usefulness and that they are in fact a social construction - they tell us more about the social groups involved in their collection –the general public, victims, the mass media, the police and the courts - than they tell us about crime and criminals.

Question 2

Police stereotypes intro

Answer 2

Interpretivists argue that the official criminal statistics tell us more about the nature of policing in the UK than they tell us about crime and criminality.

Question 3

Conclusion

Answer 3

institutional racism - After the racist murder of a black youth, Stephen Lawrence in 1993, and after very considerable pressure from his parents, the Macpherson Inquiry was set up to look at the circumstances of his death and the handling of the situation by the police. Lord Macpherson concluded that the police were characterised by institutional racism. By this he meant that the police have ‘procedures, practices and a culture that tend to exclude or to disadvantage non-white people’.