ethnicity, crime, and justice Flashcards
(22 cards)
victim surveys
Phillips and Bowling - white victims over-identity black people as offenders
stop and search
under the Terrorism Act (2000), asian communities are searched more than any other people
Philips and Bowling - ethnic minorities are ‘over-policed and under-protected’ meaning they have no faith in the police
3 reasons for stop and search patterns
- police racism
- ethnic differences in offending
- demographic factors (the young, the unemployed, and manual labourers (all of ethnic minorities) are stopped most)
MacPherson Report
the murder of Stephen Lawrence proved the Met Police as institutionally racist
professional incompetence, failure of leadership by senior officers
Hudson and Bramhall
racist attitudes in pre-trial reports can lead to higher conviction rates, such as Muslims being likely to be labelled as ‘unremorseful’
prison statistics
black people are 4x as likely to be in prison as white people
arrests and cautions
black and asian arrestees are less likely to get a caution because they are less trusting in the police, exercising their right to legal aid - not admitting to crimes means that cautions cannot be offered
prosecution and trial
the CPS is more likely to drop cases with ethnic minorities, usually seeing the evidence as weak and based on racist stereotypes
therefore ethnic minorities are less likely to be sentenced, suggesting police racism
Sharpe and Budd
in self-report studies, 40% of white respondents admitted to a crime compared to 30% of black respondents and 20% of asian respondents
(LR) Young - explanation for crime
racism = marginalisation, which leads to poverty and relative deprivation, leading to crime
(LR) Lea and Young - explanation for crime
- the police act in racist ways, which criminalises ethnic minorities
- statistics represent real differences in crime between ethnic groups, which is caused by relative deprivation and marginalisation
AO3 of LR explanations of ethnic differences in crime
the differences between ethnic groups and offending and more diverse than Lea and Young claim - the police stereotype them differently (i.e., black people as dangerous and asian people as aggressive)
Neo-Marxists and ethnic differences in crime
stereotypes are socially constructed
(N-M) Gilroy
the crimes ethnic minorities commit are a response to racism, such as rioting and protesting
AO3 of Gilroy
Lea and Young - first-generation immigrants in the 50s and 60s were very law-abiding
Most crime is intra-ethnic, so it can’t be a fight against racism
(N-M) Hall et al - Policing The Crisis
the 1970s saw a media-driven ‘moral panic’ over black ‘muggers’ which existed to distract people from the real issue - unemployment - and divide the WC so that there wouldn’t be an uprising
AO3 of Hall et al
Downes and Rock - Hall is inconsistent because he recognises that crime wasn’t rising, but also suggests it could be because of unemployment
racist victimisation
an individual selected as a target because of their race, ethnicity, or religion
info on racist victimisation comes from the CSEW and police-recorded statistics which cover…
- racist incidents = any incident perceived to be racist by the victim or another
- racially or religiously aggravated offences = offender as motivated by hostility towards members of a racial or religious group
risk of victimisation
- people from mixed ethnic backgrounds are most likely to be victims
- young, male, ethnic minorities are most at risk of violent crime
- Sampson and Phillips - racist victimisation tends to be ongoing over time with repeated instances of minor abuse occurring as well as violent crime
how many racially motivated crimes were there in 2019/20?
CSEW - estimates around 104,000 (76,000 reported, 28,000 unreported)
responses to victimisation
- situational crime prevention = fireproof doors and letter boxes, locked windows, self-defence campaigns
- the police fail to record or investigate incidents properly
