2.2.6 Crime and deviance: Ethnicity, crime and justice

Question 1

Ethnicity and criminalisation

Official statistics show that blacks are ____ times more likely to be stopped and searched and ____ times more likely to be in prison.

Answer 1

Blacks are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched and five times more likely to be in prison.

Question 2

Ethnicity and criminalisation

What are victim surveys and what are their limitations?

Answer 2

• They ask individuals to say what crimes they have been victims of and sometimes ask victims to identify the ethnicity of the person who commited the crime.
• However, they rely on people’s memory.

Question 3

Ethnicity and criminalisation

What are self report studies and what did Graham and Bowling find about ethnicities?

Answer 3

• Ask individuals to disclose crimes they have committed.
• Found that self report studies showed that black and whites had similar rates of offending.

Question 4

Racism and the criminal justice system

What do Phillips and Bowling note about policing being racist?

Answer 4

• There have been many allegations of oppressive policing, such as mass stop and search operations.
• Failiure to respond to racist violence.
• Minorities think they are ‘over-policed and under-protected’.

Question 5

Racism and the criminal justice system

In what ways do demographic factors explain why ethnic minorities are more likely to be stopped and searched?

Answer 5

Ethnic minorities are over-represented in the groups most likely to be stopped, regardless of ethnicity. E.g the young, the unemployed, urban dwellers.

Question 6

Racism and the criminal justice system

How does prosecution and trials display police racism?

Answer 6

• The crown prosecution service (cps) are more likely to drop cases against minorities then against white people and Black defendants are less likely to be found guilty then whites.
• This shows that police arrest ethnic minorities with less evidence, based on racism.

Question 7

Racism and the criminal justice system

What is the main debate surrounding ethnice minority rates of offending shown in crime statistics?

Answer 7

• Whether crime statistics represent facts or social constructs.
• Left realists argue they represent real differences in offending.
• Neo-marxists argue they are social contructs produced by racist labelling.

Question 8

Left realism

What do left realists Lea and Young argue about crime statistics

Answer 8

Represent real ethnic differences in levels of offending

Question 9

Left realism

What do Lea and Young believe causes ethnic minority groups to commit more crimes?

Answer 9

• Marginalisation
• relative deprivation
• Admit police do act in racist ways but not enough to explain the levels of offending, and police racism cannot explain differences between levels of black and asian offending.

Question 10

Neo-marxism

What does Gilroy argue about the statistics surrounding black ciminality?

Answer 10

• Argues black criminality is a myth created by racist stereotypes, whereas in reality these groups are not more criminal.
• Because the cjs acts on stereotypes, minorities are criminalised and appear in greater numbers in official statistics.

Question 11

Neo-marxism

How does Gilroy view black criminality?

Answer 11

• As a form of political resistance against racist society.
• Rooted in anti-colonial struggle from their ancestors.

Question 12

Neo-marxism

How do Lea and Young criticise Gilroy’s view on black criminality being a form of political resistance?

(4)

Answer 12

• Argue that first generation immigrants were law abiding so its unlikely they passed on a tradition of anti-colonial struggle.
• Most crime is intra-ethnic, not a struggle against racism.
• Wrongly romanticises street crime as revolutionary.
• Low asian crime rate - only racist to blacks.

Question 13

Neo-marxism

What do Hall et al argue about high black crime rates?

Answer 13

• Black youth were scapegoated to create a moral panic about black muggers to distract from the ‘crisis of capitalism’ (high inflation, unemployment, striked) at the time(1970s).
• Therefore, the moral panic served to divide the working class on racial grounds to prevent revolution.
• However also acknowledge that unemployment as a result of the crisis of capitalism led many to petty crime, meaning the high rates weren’t only a product of labelling.

Question 14

Neo-marxism

What are the main criticisms against Hall et al’s theory that black crime rates are used to create a moral panic?

Answer 14

• Contradictory as they suggest black crime rates weren’t rising but were a result of labelling, whilst saying they were rising due to unemployment.
• Don’t describe how this led to a moral panic.

Question 15

Neo-marxism

What do FitzGerald et al argue about neighbourhood factors affecting crime rates?

Answer 15

Found that street crime was most common in poor areas where people had acess to richer groups, and young black were more likely to live in these areas and be more, so not based on ethnicity.

Question 16

Neo-marxism

What do Sharp and Budd argue about getting caught?

Answer 16

Found that black offenders were more likely to be arrestes because they commited crimes that where they were easily identifiable e.g robbory. They had been excluded from school or associated with criminals which raised their visibility to police.