ethnicity and crime Flashcards
(16 cards)
How are black and asian people over-represented in crime statistics
black people make up 3% of the population but 13.1% of the prison population
Asian people make up 6.5% of the population, but 7.7% of the prison population.
what are victim surveys
they ask individuals to say what crimes they have been victims of (usually during the past 12 months). They ask victims to identify the ethnicity of the person who committed the crime. They note that a great deal of crime is intra-ethnic.
What limitations do victim surveys have (4)
- relu on victim’s memory of the events. According to phillips and bowling, evidence suggests that white victims may over-identify blacks
- only cover personal crimes which make up only 1/5 of all crimes
- exclude under 10s.- e/m groups contain larger population of young people.
- Exclude crimes by and against organisations so they tell us nothing about the ethnicity of white collar and corperate criminals.
What are self report studies?
ask individuals to disclose own dishonest and violent behaviour. Graham and Bowling found that blacks (43%) and whites (44%) had very similar rates of offending while indians (30%), pakistanis (28%) and Bangladeshis (13%) had much lower rates.
What are the two main explanations for statistics?
Left realism - statistics represent real differences in rates of offending.
Neo-marxism - statistics are a social construct resulting from racist labelling and discrimination in the criminal justice system.
Left realism view of ethnicity and crime
Lea and Young argue that ethnic differences in the statistics reflect real differences in the levels of offending by different ethnic groups. Left realists see crime as the product of relative deprivation, subcultre and marginalisation. Racism led to marginalisation and economic exclusion.
acknowledge that the police act in racist ways but we cannot explain differences between minorities in terms of police racism.
How can lea and young be criticism? E&C
The police stereotype asians and blacks differently seeing blacks as dangerous and asians as passive. This may have changed since 9/11 because police now regard asians as dangerous explaining rising criminalisation of asians.
Gilroy (E&C)
Idea of black criminality is a myth created by racist stereotypes of African Caribbeans and asians. These groups are no more criminal than any other. E/M crime can be seen as a form of political resistance against racist society with roots in earlier struggles against British imperialism. Holds similar view to critical criminology.
How do lea and Young criticise Gilroy (3)
- first generation immigrants in the 50s and 60s were law abiding so it is unlikely that they passed down tradition of anti-colonial struggle to children.
- Most crime is intra-ethnic. Like critical criminologists, Gilroy romanticises street crime as somehow revolutionary.
- Asian crime rates are similar to / lower than whites. If Gilroy were right, then the police are only racist towards blacks and not asians.
Hall et al (E&C)
In the early 1970s, British capitalism faced a crisis. High inflation and rising unemployment were provoking widespread industrial unrest and strikes.
Moral panic - the 1970s also saw emergence of media-driven moral panic about supposed growth of new crime - mugging.
emergence of the moral panic about mugging as a specifically ‘black’ crime at the same time as the crisis of capitalism was no coincidence.
The black mugger came to symbolise disintegration of the social order. Moral panic divided working class on racial grounds and weakened opposition to capitalism.
Give three criticisms of Hall et al
downes and rock - inconsistent in claiming that black street crime was not rising, but also that it was rising due to unemployment.
Do not show how the capitalist crisis led to moral panic or provide evidence that the public were in fact panicking or blaming crime on blacks.
Left realists argue that inner-city residents’ fears about mugging are not panicky, but realistic.
Explain the explanation of neighbourhood (E&C)
Fitzgerald et al - found that rates were highest in very poor areas and where very deprived young people came into contact with more affluent groups. Young blacks were more likely to commit street ctime. Ethnicty as such were not a cause but black people are more likely to live in poorer areas due to racism discrimination in housing and job markets.
Explain the explanation of getting caught (E&M)
Sharpe and budd - black offenders more likely to have been arrested than white offenders.
when does racist victimisation occur?
when an individual is selected as a target because of their race, ethnicity, religion. Victimisation is nothing new but was brought into greater public focus when with the racist murder of the black teenager stephen lawrence.
What do Sampson and Phillips say about racist victimisation?
racist victimisation tends to be ongoing over time with repeated minor instances of abuse and harrassment interwoven with periodic incidents of physical violence.
Responses to racist victimisation
situational crime prevention such as fireproof doors and letterboxes, organised self defence campaigns aimed at physically defending neighbourhoods from racist attacks.
Need to be understood in context of accusations of under-protection by the police.
macpherson Enquiry found that police investigation into Stephen Lawrence’s murder was marred by a combo of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers.
