Topic 6 - Ethnicity

Question 1

What is a victim survey

Answer 1

• Ask individuals what crimes they have been victims of

Question 2

What can we learn from the data gathered via victim surveys

Answer 2

• Gain info about relationship between ethnicity and offending
• Intra-ethnic

Question 3

A03 Victim surveys

Answer 3

• BOWLING and PHILLIPS evidence suggests that white victims over-identify black people as offenders

Question 4

Self-report

Answer 4

• Ask individuals to disclose their own deviant behaviour

Question 5

GRAHAM and BOWLING

Answer 5

• Found offending rates for black and white respondants were very similar (43% and 44%) - offending amongst Asian people was lower

Question 6

SHARP and BUDD

Answer 6

• Found that white people and those of mixed origins were most likely to say they had committed an offence (40%), followed by black people (28%), and Asians (21%)

Question 7

HOME OFFICE

Answer 7

• Conducted multiple self-report studies intro drug use in the 1990s
• Found that those from mixed ethnicity backgrounds (27%) said that they had used drugs in the last year compared with 16% of black or white people

Question 8

Challenging stereotypes (self-report)

Answer 8

• Black people are more likely than white people to offend

Question 9

Policing

Answer 9

• Stop and search
• Terrorism act 2000
• Tasers
• Demographic factors
• Ethnic differences in offending
• Police racism

Question 10

Stop and search

Answer 10

• Enables the police to stop people on the basis of reasonable suspicion
• Black people 7x more likely to be stopped than white people and Asians 2x as likely

Question 11

Terrorism Act 2000

Answer 11

• Enables the police to stop people without reasonable suspicion
• Asian people were three times more likely to be stopped and searched than other groups under this act

Question 12

Tasers

Answer 12

• Chance of being involved in a Taser incident varies
• Asian people = 3 in 10,000
• White people = 6 in 10,000
• Black people = 18 in 10,000

Question 13

Demographic factors

Answer 13

• Ethnic groups are over-represented in the population group who are most likely to be stopped, e.g., young and unemployed

Question 14

Ethnic differences in offending

Answer 14

• Low discretion: police are acting on descriptions, e.g, what the offender is wearing and descriptions
• High discretion: no intelligence, police base their stops off of stereotypes

Question 15

Police racism

Answer 15

• MACPHERSON report concluded that there were institutional racism within the Metropolitan police force including the endorsement of a “canteen culture”
• Canteen culture: to sum up attitudes (often racist and sexist) that prevail among workers within an organisation, despite these attitudes being officially disapproved of by the organisation they work for

Question 16

Arrests and cautions

Answer 16

• 2014/15 = arrest rates for Black people was 3x the rate for White people
• Once arrested Black and Asian people were less likely to recieve a caution
• Explanation = ethnic minorities are less likely to admit the offence due to a mistrust of the police (they cannot be cautioned)

Question 17

Prosecution and trial

Answer 17

• CPS are more likely to drop cases against ethnic minorities, evidence presented against them is weaker and based on stereotyping
• Ethnic minorities are more likely to elect for a trial before a jury (mistrust of migistrate’s impartiality - crown courts can impose harsher sentences if found guilty)

Question 18

Conviction, sentencing, and prison

Answer 18

• Black and Asian defendents more likely to be found not guilty, suggesting discrimination may bring weaker cases against ethnic minorities and then thrown out by the courts
• Black offenders have imprison rates 3% higher, and Asian offenders 5% higher than White offenders
• HUDSON and BRAMHALL found pre-sentence reports allow for discrimination, reports on Asian people were less detailed and suggested they were less remorseful than White offenders (source of bias is the demonising of Muslims following 9/11)
• 2014 = 1/4+ of the male prison population were from ethnic minority backgrounds
• Black people 4 times more likely to be in prison than White people
• Black and Asian offenders more likely to serve a longer sentence
• All ethnic minority groups have a higher average proportion of prisoners on remand as they are less likely to be granted bail

Question 19

Explaining differences in offending

Answer 19

• Left-realism = statistics represent a real difference in rates of offending
• Neo-marxism = statistics are socially constructed resulting from racist labelling and discrimination in the CJS

Question 20

Ledt-realism (explaining differences in offending)

Answer 20

• LEA and YOUNG
  3 factors that produce crime:
  1. Relative deprivation
  2. Subcultures
  3. Marginalisation

Question 21

A03 Left-realism (explaining differences in offending)

Answer 21

• Criticised for their views on police racism
• E.g., arrest rates for Asian people may be lower than for Black people not because they are less likely to offend but because the police stereotype the two very differently
• Black males = dangerous, Asian males = passive
• Since 9/11, Asian males now seen as dangerous = rise in criminality for the group

Question 22

Neo-marxist view (explaining differences in offending)

Answer 22

• Statistics are the outcome of social construction that stereotypes ethnic minorities as more criminal than the majority population

Question 23

The myth of Black criminality

Answer 23

• GILROY
• Black criminality is a myth created by racist stereotypes of African Caribbeans and Asians
• An extension of the resistance shown by the Black population against British Imperialism (political resistance forged during colonial times)
• When faced with racism in Britain they adopted the same struggle to defend themselves but their fight for equality was criminalised by the state
• No more criminal than any other group but are the victim of racial stereotypes and the subject of increased levels of formal social control mechanisms

Question 24

A03 The myth of Black criminality

Answer 24

• First generation immigrants in the 50s and 60s were very law abiding so it is unlikely they passed down anti-colonial struggles
• Most crime is intra-ethnic so it can’t be seen as anti-colonial struggle against racism
• LEA and YOUNG argue GILROY romanticises street crime as revolutionary
• Asian crime rateare similar to/lower than White people, if GILROY were right, then the police would only be racist to Black people

Question 25

Policing the crisis

Answer 25

• HALL
• Took a neo-marxist perspective of the moral panic that arose over the apparent increase in mugging in the 1970s
• Argues the ruling class are normally able to control the working with consent but in times of crisis = increasingly difficult
• For HALL the moral panic over mugging and the identification of black offenders was not co-incidental
• Black mugger (symbolised the disintergration of social order) = scapegoat to distract attention from wider social problems and enabled the ruling class to employ what was seen as legitimate force to control the Black community
• HALL accepted a level of criminality amongst the Black community as a result of marginalisation

Question 26

A03 Policing the crisis

Answer 26

• DOWNES and ROCK argue HALL cannot argue that Black street crime was not rising as well as arguing it was rising: inconsistent approach
• Left realists argue street crime was increasing and so the concerns of wider community over the increase in mugging was justified

Question 27

More recent approaches

Answer 27

1. Neighbourhood - FITZGERALD
2. Getting caught - SHARP and BUDD§

Question 28

Neighbourhood

Answer 28

• FITZGERALD
• Explain ethnic differences in crime (street robbery)
• The rates were higher in poorer areas where deprived young people came into contact with affluent people
• Black youths are more likely to live in these types of areas
• White people affected by these factors were more likely to commit street crime
• Ethnicity = not the specific cause but Black groups are more likely to live in poor areas due to racial discrimination

Question 29

Getting caught

Answer 29

• SHARP and BUDD
• Some groups run greater risk of being caught (Black offenders more likely to have been arrested)
• More likely to commit crimes such as robbery, where they can be identified and have been excluded from school/associate with known criminals

Question 30

Ethnicity and victimistion

Answer 30

• Racist victimisation = individual selected as a target on the basis of their ethnicity and this issue was brought by the murder of Stephen Lawrence
• CSEW:
  1. Racist identities
  2. Racially or religiously aggravated offences

Question 31

Extent and risk of victimisation

Answer 31

• 2015 = 54,000 racist incidents were recorded in England and Wales (damage to propery or verbal harassment)
• CSEW estimated 89,000 racially motivated incidents in the same year
• Chance of being a victim of crime varies by ethnic group, mixed ethnic groups = likely to be victims, white people = less likely to be victims
• SAMPSON and PHILLIPS = stats do not reflect the experience of being a victim of racist crimes as they tend to be repeated over time

Question 32

Responses to victimisation

Answer 32

• Situational crime prevention strategies, e.g., fireproof doors/organised self-defence campaigns
• Macpherson Report = institutionalised racism