Crime and Deviance - ethnicity and crime

Phillips and Bowling

Victim surveys are unreliable. White victims may over-identify against blacks. Members of ethnic minority groups believe that they are over-policed and under-protected.

Graham and Bowling

Self report studies show blacks (40%) and whites (43%) had very similar crime rates which was disproportionate in the prison population.

Macpherson Report - institutional racism

Collective failure in the police organisation which disadvantages minority ethnic groups.

Sandhu: institutional racism still exists in the CJS today

Hood - convictions and sentencing

Study of 5 crown courts. Black men were 5% more likely to receive a custodial sentence. Given sentences on average 3 months (Asian men = 9 months) longer than white men.

Lea and Young

Ethnic differences in statistics are due to real differences in the level of offending by different ethnic groups. Racism leads to marginalisation and economic exclusion, contemporary emphasis on consumerism promotes relative deprivation → turn to delinquent subcultures.

Gilroy - myth of black criminality

Over-representation in CJS is a product of racism. Saw MEGs as defending themselves against a society that treated them unjustly - was a way to resist oppression.

Lea and Young (CRITICS OF GILROY)

Hard to see how the tradition of anti-colonial struggle can be transmitted to 2nd generation immigrants with law-abiding parents.

Romanticises crime amongst EMs - unemployment + racial discrimination might result in a SFP with minority groups committing more street crime than others.

Hall et al - policing the crisis

Black males used as scapegoats to a moral panic on mugging to divert the public’s attention from economic crisis and crisis of legitimacy which put pressure on the government. Led to a deviancy amplification spiral due to media sensationalisation and labelling.

Downes and Rock (Critics of Hall et al)

Claims AC street crime wasn’t increasing, then that it was amplified by the police, and then that it was bound to rise due to unemployment in the 1970s. Showed little interest or sympathy towards the mugging victims.

Fitzgerald et al

Crime rates are highest in very poor areas. Whites were just as likely to get involved with crime but blacks are more likely to live in poorer areas due to racial discrimination in the housing and job markets.

Sampson and Phillips

Black offenders more likely than white offenders to have been arrested. Blacks are more likely to be ‘visible’ to the authorities:

• commit identifiable crimes

• have been excluded from school

• associate with known criminals