Ethnicity and crime Flashcards
(11 cards)
What are some patterns and trends in ethnicity and crime?
Of the 80,000 men in prison approximately 74% are white.
The ministry of justice in 2008 found that:
Afro Caribbeans are more likely to be arrested for robbery.
Asian’s were two as likely to be stopped and search, mainly for drugs.
What does Cicourel state about the differences in how different ethnicities are treated at all stages of the criminal justice system?
Officer Typifications:
Claimed that police officer and judges use typifications based on stereotypes to influence their judgement of an offender.
If the offender fits their expectations of a typical criminal, they are more likely to arrest them.
E.g. Ethnic minorities, w/c boys and youths.
What does Philips and Bowling state about prosecution and convictions?
Studies show that the CPS are most likely to drop causes against ethnic minorities.
They argue that the reason for this is that evidence presented to the CPS by the police weaker based on stereotyping of ethnic minorities as criminals.
Black/ Asian defendants are less likely to be found guilty, suggesting discrimination.
What are two statistics surrounding prisoners regarding ethnic minorities?
Black people are 4x more likely to be in prison than white people.
Ethnic minorities are less likely to be granted bail, leading to higher than average proportion of prisoners on remand.
What is an explanation for difference in offending?
Institutional racism in the criminal
justice system.
E.g. The Macpherson Report,
Stephen Lawrence case. This highlighted the deep-rooted problems of institutional racism within the police.
What do Left Realist Lea and Young say about the explanations of ethnic differences in criminality?
Argue that statistics reflect real differences in the level of offending in different ethnic groups, due to marginalisation, relative deprivation and subcultures.
Don’t believe that institutional racism fully explains levels of crime in ethnic minorities. E.g. 90% of crimes are reported to the public. They further suggest that OS wouldn’t show differences of ethnic minorities if it was based on institutional racism.
What does Neo-Marxist Gilroy state about the explanations of ethnic differences in criminality?
The myth of black criminality:
They believe that black criminality is a myth created by racist stereotypes I society and agencies of law acting upon them.
For ethnic minorities crime is seen as a form of political resistance. They have learnt to resist oppression through protests and riots, due to deep rooted colonisation.
When faced with racism ethnic minorities revert back to these tactics but now these tactics are criminalised.
E.g. Rastafarianism.
What is a criticism of Gilroy’s view?
Romanticism street crime as revolutionary where in fact it is not carried out against the government agencies but individuals.
E.g. Football fans in Paris.
What is Neo-Marxist Hall et al’s view of ethnic differences in criminality?
Policing the crisis:
In the 1970’s there was a moral panic created about ‘black muggers’ due to capitalism facing a crisis. This then created a diversion from the wider economic crisis.
Suggests this was used as a scapegoat to distract the public from the real crisis.
E.g. unemployment.
This divided the w/c on the basis of race to prevent rebellion.
This is a mixture of labelling black male youths and issues with marginalisation due to economic crisis that has led to an increase in ethnic minorities committing crime.
What is a criticism of Hall et al’s view?
Hall contradicts himself.
Stating that black crime is exaggerated but crime will rise on the basis of factor such as unemployment.
But if crime rates rise then it’s not a moral panic but real events.
What does Sampson and Philips state about ethnicity and victimisation?
It is importantly to sue victim survey’s when looking at these issues, due to OS not capturing the victims experience.
Such as when ethnic minorities are the repeat victims of crimes such as abuse and harassment.
