Crime and Ethnicity Flashcards
Key trends in OS, victim surveys and self-report studies.
Official statistics:
>Young, black men are over-represented at all stages of the justice system.
>Young, black men are 7x more likely to be stopped and searched.
>British-Asian people are generally under-represented in crime trends.
Victim Surveys;
>Victim groups tend to come from the same ethnic group as the offender.
>Crime is typically intra-racial
>Ethnic minority groups express greater fear of crime compared to white people.
Self-report studies:
>No ethnic groups stand out in terms of committing more or less crime.
>A relatively equal distribution of crime committed across all ethnic groups. This suggests bias in the way that ethnicity is represented in official police data.
How are ethnic differences in patterns of offending explained?
A) Structural explanations
These tend to accept that crime statistics are largely correct and that real ethnic differences in patterns of crime and victimisation exist. This is due to the way in which society is structured, putting some people at a greater disadvantage in all areas of life compared to others, explaining why crime rates can be high or low.
B) These tend to reject the reliability and validity of crime statistics and see them as presenting a false, misleading impression of the relationship between ethnicity and crime. Due to the ways in which statistical data are produced, they give a very inaccurate impression of what is happening in society, resulting in some ethnic groups appearing to commit more crimes than others, but this is not true.
Material Deprivation
The close link between poor and crime.
> Ethnic minority groups are more likely to live in poor areas meaning ethnic minorities commit more crimes.
EVALUATION:
>Bangladeshi and Pakistani backgrounds have lower rates of crime than white people despite being 6 times more likely to be poor.
>Not all crimes are linked to poverty, for example, fraud and domestic violence can be committed by middle-class people.
Age Profiles
16 - 24-year-olds are most likely to commit a crime.
> Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani families tend to have more children compared to white people meaning there is a high proportion of ethnic minority groups in 16-24-year-olds.
> It would be logical to link patterns to age rather than ethnicity.
EVALUATION
>why are crime rates highest among British - Asian groups so why is age the explanation for crime rate stats?
Underachievement in school
Black boys are more likely to be permanently excluded from school compared to all other ethnic groups. Research on background characteristics of prisoners consistently shows that the majority have poor, if any qualifications, and a typical reading age of a primary school child.
EVALUATION:
> White, working-class boys are now the most likely group to underachieve at school, yet their representation in crime statistics is still lower than that of young black men.
John Lee and Jock Young (1984)
Social exclusion and racism
They don’t believe OCS are inaccurate. Young black men may commit more crimes than other ethnic groups.
> 92% of the crimes dealt with by police come from the public reporting crime to them - making it too difficult 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 some ethnic minority groups to the edges of society
B) Relative Deprivation - young black men can feel they can’t access luxuries others can, causing them to commit crimes with the goal to access luxury.
C) Subculture - other two factors combined to create subcultures as they provide a sense of social support. Violence and street crime are a means of achieving financial gain.
EVALUATION:
>They refuse to accept that police racism and discrimination can create false misunderstandings of ethnicity and crime.
>Ignore that men from all ethnic groups experience relative deprivation, for example, British-Asian men commit crimes due to relative deprivation.
British- Asians and Crime
> The relatively low conviction rates of British-Asian men are largely considered to be strong due to strong cultural values which keep people’s behaviour on the right side of the law.
> The shame and dishonour (Izzat) act as a strong form of social control in keeping crime rates low. However, there has been an increase in criminal behaviour in recent years, which the researchers link to young, Bangladeshi boys deliberately using crime to counter the image of themselves as weak and passive.
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.
EVALUATION - 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.
EVALUATION 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
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.
EVALUATION - 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.
