Crime and Ethnicity Flashcards
Material Deprivation
Close link between poor and crime.
> Ethnic minority groups more likely to live in poor areas meaning ethnic minorities commit more crime.
EVAL - Bangladeshi and Pakistani backgrounds have lower rates of crime than white people despite being 6 times more likely to be poor.
EVAL - not all crimes are linked to poverty for example fraud domestic violence can be committed by middle class people.
Age Profiles
16 - 24 year olds most likely to commit crime
> Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani families tend to have more children compared to white people meaning there is high proportion of ethnic minority groups in 16-24 year olds.
> It would be logical to link patterns to age rather than ethnicity.
EVAL - why are crime rates highest among British - Asian groups so why is age the explanation for crime rate stats.
John Lee and Jock Young (1984)
they don’t believe OCS are innacurate. Young black men may commit more crime than other ethnic groups.
> 92% of the crimes dealt with by police come from the public reporting crime to them - making it to difficuilt to argue over-representation of black men in crime stats is caused by police discrimination.
> they believe that real differences in ethnicity and crime exist.
factors they say on why young black men commit more crime compared to other ethnic minorities:
A) Social marginality - underachievement at school, a lack of employment opportunities and racism have pushed soem ethnic minority groups to edges of society
B) Relative Deprivation - young black men can feel they cant access luxuries others can, causing them to commit crime with the goal to access luxury.
C) Subculture - other two factors combined to create subcultures as they provide sense of social support. Violence and street crime are a means of achieving financial gain.
EVAL - they refuse to accept that police racism and discrimination can create false misunderstanding of ethnicity and crime.
EVAL - ignore that men from all ethnic groups experience relative deprivation for example British-Asian men commit crime due to relative deprivation.
Police racism
white officers tend to discriminate ethnic minority groups
young black men 7X more likely to be stop and searched than any other ethnic minority groups in men.
only 12% of stop and search result in arrest.
EVAL - Waddington et al (2000)
interview officers - found they stop and search young black as they are over-represented in poor areas - not due to racism.
EVAL for Waddington et al:
hawthorne effect: officers will not admit they are racist and therefore lie.
EXAMPLE - George Floyd killed by white officer for no reason - due to racism?
Paul Gilroy(1982)
Myth of Black criminality
racist stereotyping led to a ‘myth of black criminality’ - created by ‘negative stereotyping’ by police.
> Black men were ‘labelled’ as likely ‘muggers’ and Asian were seen as ‘illegal migrants’.
> police treated ethnic minorities unfairly therefore creating official statistics.
> Black men crime form a symbolic resistance towards the racism they face - for example London riots, 2011 protesting against police racism.
Institutional Racism - Macpherson inquiry
1993 Stephen Lawrence (young black male) was stabbed
> after pressure from parents, the ‘Macpherson inquiry’ was set up to investigate the handling of the situation by the police.
> Macpherson concluded police were institutionally racist - they have ‘deeply-embedded procedures and culture that excludes/disadvantages non-white people.
> black men were 5% more likely to be given a prison sentences than white men for similar crimes and spend more time as well.
> this skews the official crime statistics, creating inaccurate perception.
EVAL - police have made progress in addressing the racism problem with higher quality training to take place to cut out any racism within the police.
Ethnicity and sentencing in courts
- Crown Prosecution Service(CPS) more likely to terminate case-file for White-British backgrounds - showing discrimination
- Ministry of Justice shows White-heritage people least likely to recieve an immediate custodial sentence compared to black/Asian people - also average sentence given to blacks was greater than all other ethnic groups.
