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Ethnicity and Crime - Coggle Diagram
Ethnicity and Crime
Police
Phillips and Bowling (2002) claim that the criminalisation of minority ethnic groups starts with the 'over-policing of neighbourhoods where ethnic minorities, particularly African Caribbean's, are heavily concentrated'.
The 1970s and 80s saw much evidence of this through 'oppressive policing techniques' like mass stop and search operations, use of riot squads using semi-military equipment, excessive surveillance, unnecessary armed raids, and police use of racially abusive language.
Newburn (2007) argues that the types of areas in which police decide to conduct stops and searches could reflect police racism. The police may assume that areas with high proportions of minority ethnic residents are more prone to crime and therefore patrol them more frequently.
Ministry of Justice (2011) figures show that black people are more likely to be stopped and search in the vast majority of police force areas, regardless of whether they are predominantly urban or rural.
Phillips and Bowling (2002) suggest that this makes a 'modest but significant contribution to the over-representation of black people in the arrest population'.
Case studies like the 'lawful' killing of Tottenham resident Mark Duggan display this question of over-policing of ethnic minorities. Not only was it inconclusive that Duggan was indeed in possession of a firearm when he was shot an killed by a police officer, it is unclear why he was being so closely surveilled when there may have been a more effective candidate for surveillance (the firearms dealer), especially considering Duggan had no previous history of firearm related offences, or any serious crimes with gang affiliations.
Self-report studies
These studies give some indication of the chances of crimes committed by different groups leading to arrests.
The largest study of ethnicity and self-reported offending resulted from the government's Crime and Justice Survey (2003), with data analysed by Sharp and Budd (2005).
The study found that both black and Asian respondents were less likely than whites to admit offending either in the last 12 months or during their lifetime. In terms of lifetime offending, Asians reported about half as much criminality as whites, while blacks reported a third less than whites. This is very different from the large over-representation of blacks in arrest statistics and the prison population.
2009-10 figures show that blacks are about three times more likely to get arrested and about five more times likely to be in prison than you would expect given their proportion in the population.
Even taking into account the limitations of self-report studies, these figures do suggest that black offenders are far more likely to be arrested and imprisoned than white offenders, and it seems likely that this is in part a result of unfairness in the operation of the criminal justice system.
Phillips and Bowling (2002) conclude that it is impossible to calculate the extent to which the over-representation of some minority ethnic groups among those convicted of crime is due to racism. It is impossible because some studies are contradictory and because of the complex nature of criminal justice itself.
Gilroy (1983)
He had a social constructionist view and argued that the statistics showing disproportionate involvement of African Caribbean's in street crime could not be trusted as they reflected the prejudice of the police rather than any real tendency to be more criminal.
He argues that black criminality is a myth and rejects the idea that black criminals belong to an 'alien culture' of poor socialisation. He instead sees minority ethnic groups as defending themselves against a society which treats them unjustly.
Gilroy sees minority crime as part of a political struggle. He believes the myth has been created as a result of police having negative stereotypes of African Caribbean's and Asians; that they are either 'wild' and 'lawless' or potentially 'suspicious illegal immigrants'.
The British Crime Survey (2007) shows that 90% of attacks on white people were by white people. CSEW (2014) found that ethnic minorities in the UK were far more likely to be victims of crime.
This suggests that the myth of black criminality could be more of a moral panic (Hall et al (1979), as a result of media attention on ethnic minority crime, than actual truth.
Lea and Young (1984)
They have a more structuralist view, and argue that it is not entirely a myth that certain types of crime are more common among minority ethnic groups than among whites. They believe official statistics on the ethnic background of offenders are not entirely fabricated.
Lea and Young disagree with Gilroy's suggestion that the disproportionate number of black males convicted of crimes in Britain is caused by police racism. They quote figures showing that 92% of crimes known to the police are brought to their attention by the public, and only 8% are uncovered by the police themselves.
They therefore argue that it is difficult to believe that the preponderance of black in official figures is entirely a consequence of discrimination by the police. They see it as plausible to believe that there are real differences between offending rates, with African Caribbean's having a higher offending rate than whites for some crimes.
They point out that the recorded rate of crimes committed by whites is consistently higher than that recorded for Asians. They maintain that 'police racism would have to manifest itself very strangely indeed to be entirely responsible for such rates'.
Lea and Young accept that policing policies and police racism exaggerate the minority ethnic crime rate, but they do believe there has been a real increase in the number of crimes, particularly robbery, committed by African Caribbean's.
Police racism
Phillips and Bowling (2012) believe the differences in the criminality of African Caribbean's and Asian people could be accounted for by police racism.
They believe that the perspective of Lea and Young 'overlooks the evidence that modern racism has, since its origins, constructed very different images of particular ethnic groups and these have inspired markedly different social responses'.
From this viewpoint, the differences between ethnic groups may well be explained by racial stereotypes and discrimination within the criminal justice system. This could contribute to the idea of 'canteen culture' within the police of file and rank in relation to criminals.
Reiner (2000) saw that this included suspicion, macho attitudes and racism which encourages racist stereotypes and mistrust of those from non-white backgrounds.
Hall et al (1979) agreed that African Caribbean's were much more likely to be labelled as criminals than whites.
British Asian Crime
Phillips and Bowling note that earlier ethnographic studies had generally portrayed Asian communities as 'inward-looking', 'tightly-knit' and self-regulating, passive and ordered by tradition with strong family ties. These characteristics were assumed to explain low rates of criminality along British Asians.
For example, Mawby and Batta (1980) examined criminality among British Asians in Bradford. They pointed out that most of them were relatively poor, of working class backgrounds and living in inner-city areas. All of these factors suggested that they should be heavily involved in crime. However, the study found that they committed few crimes and those that they did commit tended to be of a minor nature.
Mawby and Batta explained that the emphasis on family honour encouraged conformism among British Asians as they were afraid of dishonouring their family name and they were therefore reluctant to commit crime.
Alexander (2000) argued that the media image of a growing problem of Asian gangs was something of a myth and although some were violent in the area of south London she studied, it was greatly exaggerated by the media. There were no clearly defined Asian gangs, and friendships and conflicts in the area could cut across divisions between ethnic groups.
Hallsworth and Young (2008) argued that the media coverage of an Asian 'gang' in London, the 'Muslim Boys', was 'an overly sensational exercise in journalism composed largely of unsubstantiated claims and stories'.