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Topic Six: Ethnicity and Crime (The facts (2001 stats) (91% of people in…
Topic Six: Ethnicity and Crime
The facts (2001 stats)
91% of people in the UK are white
9% are non-white
5% Asian
2% mixed and other
2% Black Caribbean and African
Of the 85,000 men in prison, approximately 74% are white, 15% Afro-Caribbean, 7% Asian, 3% mixed and 1% Chinese
Of the 7000 women in prison, 70% are white, 21% Afro-Caribbean, 5% mixed, 2% Asian and 2% Chinese and other
The situation in the USA is very similar - Black Americans make up 13% of the total population and 50% of the prison population
Official Statistics (police)
Black ethnic groups are 'over represented'
While Black people only made up 1.8% of the population, they made up 7.7% of the arrests
6.2% of cautions
12.1% of the prison population
Asian groups are only very slightly over-represented
White people are under-represented - less likely to be arrested, cautioned and sent to prison
Racism and the CJS
Policing
Phillips and Bowling (2007) note that there have been many allegations of oppressive policing and minority communities, including:
Mass stop and search operations, paramilitary tactics, excessive surveillance, armed raids, police violence and deaths in custody, and a failure to respond effectively to racist violence
They note that minorities are more likely to think they are 'over policed and under-protected'
Stop and Search
Black people are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than whites
Asians are over three times more likely to be stopped and searched than other people under the Terrorism Act 2000
Only a small proportion of stops result in arrest
These patterns may be explained by:
Ethnic differences in offending
- the patterns may simply reflect the possibility that some ethnic groups are more likely to offend, and that police are acting on relevant information about a specific offence ('low discretion stops')
Police racism
- alternatively, members of minority ethnic groups may be stopped more because of police racism. In high discretion stops, police act without specific information and are more likely to discriminate
Demographic factors
- ethnic minorities are over-re[resented in the groups most likely to be stopped regardless of their ethnicity, e.g. the young, unemployed and urban dwellers, so they get stopped more
Relevant evidence: The Macpherson Report (1999) found institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police
Arrests and cautions
- the arrest rate for black people is over three times the rate for whites. By contrast, once arrested, blacks and Asians are less likely than white people to receive a caution. This may be due to the fact that minorities are more likely to deny the offence. Not admitting the offence means they cannot receive a caution and are more likely to be charged
Prosecution and Trial
The Crown Prosecution Service decides whether a case brought by the police should be prosecuted
The CPS is more likely to drop cases against minorities than against whites, and Black and Asian defendants are less likely to be found guilty than whites
When cases do go ahead, minorities are more likely to elect for a Crown Court trial by jury, rather than a magistrates' court, perhaps due to mistrust of magistrates' impartiality. However, Crown Courts can impose heavier sentences if convicted
This suggests that the evidence against minority defendants is often weaker and possibly based on police stereotyping
Sentencing and Prison
Jail sentences are given to a greater proportion of black offenders than white or Asian offenders
Hood found that even when the seriousness of the offence and previous conviction are taken into account, black men were 5% more likely to be jailed
Blacks are five times more likely to be in prison than whites. Blacks and Asians are more likely to be serving longer sentences
When awaiting trials, ethnic minorities are less likely to be granted bail
Explaining the differences in ethnic offending
Left Realism
Left realists
Lea and Young
argue that ethnic differences in the statistics reflect real differences in the levels of offending
They see crime and the product of relative deprivation, subculture and marginalisation
Racism has led to the marginalisation and economic exclusion of ethnic minorities
Media emphasis on consumerism also promotes relative deprivation by setting materialistic goals that many members of minority groups cannot reach by legitimate means because of discrimination
Lea and Young recognise that racism policing often leads to the unjustified criminalisation of some members of minority groups
However, even if the police do act in racist ways, Lea and Young argue that this is unlikely to account for the ethnic differences in the statistics
Similarly, police racism cannot explain the much higher conviction rates of blacks of than of Asians: they would have to be selectively racist against blacks but not Asians to cause these differences
Lea and Young thus conclude that:
The statistics represent real differences in offending between ethnic groups
This is because nearly all the crimes known to the police (over 90%) are reported by the public rather than discovered by the police themselves
These are caused by differences in levels of relative deprivation and marginalisation
Left Realists argue that some unemployed black youths resort to utilitarian crime to cope with relative deprivation. Also, because they are marginalised, their frustration may produce non-utilitarian crime, e.g. violence
Neo-Marxism: Black Crime as a Construct
Neo Marxists such as Gilroy and Hall et al reject the view that the statistics reflect reality. Rather, they are the outcome of a social construction process that stereotypes minorities as more criminal than whites
Gilroy: the myth of black criminality
Gilroy argues that the idea of black criminality is a myth created by racist stereotypes of African Caribbeans and Asians
In reality, these groups are no more criminal than any other ethnic group
But because the CJS acts on these racist stereotypes, minorities are criminalised and therefore appear in greater numbers in the official crime statistics
Crime as political resistance: Gilroy argues that ethnic minority is a form of political resistance against a racist society, and this resistance has its roots in earlier struggles against British imperialism
When they found themselves facing racism in Britain, they adopted the sane forms of struggle to defend themselves, but their political struggle was criminalised by the British state
Most blacks and Asians in the UK originated in former British colonies, where their anti-colonial struggles taught them how to resist oppression, e.g. through riots and demonstrations
Gilroy's view is like that of critical criminology, which argues that much working class crime is an act of resistance to capitalism
Evaluation
: Lea and Young criticise Gilroy. First-generation immigrants were law-abiding, it's unlikely they passed on a traditional of anti-colonial struggle. Most crime is intra-ethnic, not a struggle against racism. Gilroy wrongly romanticises street crime as revolutionary. Asian crime rates are similar to white. If Gilroy were right, then the police are only racist towards blacks and not Asians.
Hall et al: policing the crisis
Hall et al argue that the 1970s saw a moral panic over black 'muggers' that served the interests of capitalism in dealing with a crisis.
They argue that the ruling class are normally able to rule society through consent
But in times of crisis, this becomes more difficult. In the early 1970s, British capitalism faced a crisis: high inflation, unemployment and widespread strikes
The 1970s also saw a media-driven moral panic about the supposed growth of a 'new' crime - mugging - apparently committed by black youth. In reality, according to Hall et al, there was no evidence of a significant increase in this crime
The emergence of the moral panic about mugging as a 'black' crime at the same time as the crisis of capitalism was no coincidence. The myth of the young black mugger served as a scapegoat to distract attention from the true cause of society's problems such as unemployment - namely the capitalist crisis
By presenting black youth as a threat to the fabric of society, the moral panic served to divide the working class on racial grounds and weaken opposition to capitalism, as well as winning popular consent for more authoritarian forms of rule that could be used to suppress opposition
However, Hall et al do not argue that black crime was only a product of media labelling. The crisis of capitalism was increasingly marginalising black youth through unemployment and this drove some into petty crime to survive
Hall et all apply the concept of a media driven moral panic that was originally developed by labelling theory, but they put it into a Marxist framework that sees the panic as functioning to benefit capitalism
Evaluation:
Hall et al are inconsistent - they claim black street crime was not rising, but also that it was rising because of unemployment. They don't show how the crisis led to a moral panic, or that the public were actually blaming crime on blacks
More recent explanations
Ethnicity and Victimisation
Racism
Our information on racist victimisation comes from two main sources: victim surveys such as the CSEW, and police recorded statistics. These generally cover:
Racist incidents: any incident that is perceived to be racist by the victim or another person
Racially or religiously aggravated offences: (assault, wounding, criminal damage and harassment) where the offender is motivated by hostility towards members of a racial or religious group
Reasons from Criminality
There are two main strands of thought as to why ethnic minorities are more likely to be seen as criminals and be victims of crime
Structuralist views
- they are more criminal (but not necessarily inherently criminal) - left realists
Left Realist = a right wing approach, found that ethnic minority groups do commit more crimes
Social Constructionist views
- the criminal justice system is unfair
Neo Marxism - a left approach, ethnic minority groups are labelled/stigmatised the whole way through the CJS
CANTEEN CULTURE
Meaning
- the colloquial name for the conservative and discriminatory attitudes held by some sections of the British police forces
Origins
- describes the attitudes of some of the lower ranks of the British police force, who resist change and are comfortable with 'institutional racism'
The term canteen is used because it conjures up images of officers sat around in the canteen, casually exchanging racist language, stereotypes etc
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: REFERS TO THE WAY IN WHICH THE STRUCTURE OF AN ORGANISATION, ITS RULES ETC ACT IN A WAY WHICH IS BIASED AGAINST CERTAIN GROUPS (this can happen unintentionally)
Karla 2003
Discusses the idea that the police identify certain groups as 'trouble' (essentially labelling)
Young black men and, more recently, Muslim young men are often viewed this way
As a result, their actions are more likely to be regarded with suspicion
An example of this is the case of Dwayne Brooks - Steven Lawrence's companion on the night he was murdered. As a young Black man at the scene of a knifing he was regarded by police as a suspect rather than a witness
Stephen Lawrence case