Ethnicity and Crime

What Exam Questions could be asked about this topic?

• Provide two reasons why young men from an African-Caribbean background are more likely to commit crime (4).

• Outline two reasons for ethnic differences in criminal conviction rates (10)

• Assess sociological explanations of differences in offending and victimisation between ethnic groups (30)

What is an introduction to this topic? (1)

• Ever since the inner-city riots of the early 1980s, the relationship between ethnicity and crime has been a popular topic for sociologists to study.

• Whilst the initial research concentrated on whether certain ethnic minority groups were more ‘criminal’ than others, the focus of attention has now shifted to encompass ‘black on black’ crime and ethnic minorities as the victims of crime.

• Once again, the focus tend to be on male crime rates amongst ethnic groups.

• The Black community are over-represented in the crime figures - not proportional.

• BAME groups are more at risk of being a victim of a racially motivated crimes (e.g. hate crimes) E.g. Islamophobia.

What is an introduction to this topic? (2)

• Official statistics tend to show a comparatively high rate of ‘street crime’ e.g. mugging, drug dealing and gang activity, among youngsters (between the ages of 15 to 24) from an African-Caribbean background. Knife crime amongst young black men in London is a major problem.

• In addition to criminal statistics, victim surveys such as the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) show that a great deal of crime is intra-ethnic i.e. it takes place within rather than between ethnic groups.

• Self-report crimes challenge the stereotype of black people as being more likely than white people to offend, though they support the widely view that Asians are less likely to offend.

• For example, in their study of 2,500 people, Graham & Bowling (1995) found that black people (43%) and white people (44%) had very similar rates of offending, while Indians (30%), Pakistanis (28%) and Bangladeshi (13%) had much lower rates.

What are the reasons for explaining the differences in offending for Ethnic groups?

There are two competing schools of though on why young inner-city black men appear to commit more crime (per head) than any other ethnic group.

1. The statistics represent real differences in rate of offending and African-Caribbeans are more criminal than other ethnic groups.

2. The statistics are a social construct resulting from racist labelling and discrimination in the criminal justice system.

What does Police suggest that Black men really are more criminal?

• The police themselves tend to support this argument.

• The London Metropolitan Police have used victim surveys and recorded crime statistics to support their view that the rate of ‘street crime’ among young black men is particularly high.

• The black inner-city riots of the 1980s (Brixton, Toxteth, Handsworth, etc.), the Asian riots in 2001 (Oldham, Burnley and Bradford) and the inner-city summer riots of 2011 have left the general public feeling that Britain is awash with deviant ethnic minority gangs.

What was the significance of ‘The Broadwater Farm Riot’ (1985)?

• Black youngsters start rioting in response to how they felt that they were being treated by the police.

• PC Blakelock was hacked to death. Winston Silcott was wrongly arrest for the murder and spent 6 years in jail.

What do Left Realists Lea and Young argue about ethnic minorities in crime?

• Left Realists John Lea and Jock Young (1993) point out that although media exaggeration and police racism exist, it does not adequately explain the over-representation of some ethnic groups in the official figures.

• Instead, they argue that the increased level of social deprivation and marginalisation experienced by young black men explains their use of crime as a respone to their situation.

• One response to their lowly position in the social hierarchy is the formation of a delinquent subculture. An alienated subculture (counter-culture) gas developed with a growing number of inner-city black younsters being involved in gangs where crime plays a significant part.

• This subculture produces high levels of utilitarian crime, such as theft and robbery, as a means of coping with relative deprivation,

• Furthermore, because there groups are marginalised and have no organisations to represent their interests, their frustration is liable to produce non-utilitarian crime such as violence and rioting. Similar to Walter Miller’s ‘focal concerns’.

What are the standings of Ethnic Groups in the British Social Hierarchy?

• The Chinese & Indian are the highest in paid groups in the UK.

• More recently Russian & Middle Eastern oligarchs plus Chinese & Indian Business owners.

• Asians rise up with education and commerce.

• Blacks rise up with sport and entertainment.

• Blacks and Asians arrive in the 1950s & 1960s to do more manual jobs.

What are the Key Characteristics of inner-city black subculture?

• Weapons gain you respect.

• Macho Culture.

• American fashion.

• Bling… Material wealth sought after

How does educational underachievement specifically drive African-Caribbean boys towards ‘street crime’?

Only 23% of Black boys achieved 5+ GCSEs in 2006 compared the 44% national average.

• This leads to high school exclusion and poor job prospects.

• Deprived of legitimate paths to success, they turn to illegal alternative routes - like street crime - to achieve material goals and gain status among peers.

What is the sociological argument regarding family structure and it’s link to Black youth crime rates?

60% of young Black children live in single-parent households.

• While single mothers provide excellent care, the absence of a positive male role model can leave a disciplone and guidance gap.

• This lack of a father figure makes young men more vulnerable to the influence of anti-social peer groups and street crime.

How do the mass media and ‘gangsta rap’ contribute to criminal behaviour according to the text?

Media commercials and certain rap music heavily promote hyper-consumerisim (‘bling’), violence, guns, and drug culture.

• It creates a toxic blueprint where respect is earned through material wealth and aggression rather than traditional authority.

• Positive or ‘conscious’ rap messages are largely ignored by the mainstream, leaving only harmful role models.

Why are Asian youngsters statistically less likely to turn to crime compared to African-Caribbean youth?

Asian Youth: Benefit from tight-knit family structures and a strong, institutional ‘cultural hold’ (religion and community) that acts as a tight net of social control.

• Black Youth: Have a weakened religious/cultural grip and higher rates of lone-parent families, leaving them less anchored to traditional community structures and more exposed to street culture.

What is Argument 2: Black Men are no more Criminal than White Men?

• From the 1980s onwards, many sociologists began to challenge the idea that members of ethnic minorities were any more prone to criminality than their white counterparts.

What does the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies suggest abut racism in the Criminal justice system?

• Sociologists at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University in the early 1980 argued that it is racism within the criminal justice system that is to blame for black youngsters being over-represented in the criminal statistics.

• They strongly argued that higher levels of criminality among the black community were ‘mystical’ with the illusion being largely the result of distorted media attention and inadequate official statistics.

What does Gilroy argue about Institution Racism in the Justice System?

• The Neo-Marxist Paul Gilroy (‘The Empire Strikes Back’ 1982) believes that black people have a natural dislike of the police and other authority figures, which is a legacy of the colonial struggle.

• Gilroys suggests that the over-representation of ethnic minorities in the official figures is a result of selective police practices arising from institutional racism.

• E.g. the police stop-and-search campaign that led to much disquiet amongst the black community prior to The Broadwater Farm Riot was called ‘Operation Allsorts’, which black people regarded as a direct insult, with the Bertie Bassett liquorice allsorts character being seen as a black character.

Notes from the BBC documentary ‘The Secret Policeman’ 2003 & 2008:

• The reporter Mark Daly discovered hifh levels of racism within the police force in his investigation.

• A lot of racism is less explicit now but it is still there in the background.

What did the MacPherson Inquiry (1999) suggest?

• The MacPherson Inquiry (1999) into the Stephen Lawrence case examined a range of evidnece and supported the view that there was institutuional racism within the police.

• It took 18 years for anybody to be convicted for Stephen’s murder in 1993, after the pole seriously mishandled the entire case.

What did Philips & Bowling (2002) find?

Even though Phillips & Bowling (2002) found that the evidence on whether ethi minorities commit more crime than whites is inconclusive, they do believe that black people are more likely to be criminalised i.e. they are more likely to be truned into a criminal to be arrested. The reasons for this are that:

• There is over-policing and more military-style policing in tose areas of towns and cities with a high ethnic minority population.

• African-Caribbean men are five time more likely than whites to be stopped and searched.

• Many police officers still hold outdated racist views and are more likely to discriminate againt a black person, hence they are more likely to be charged than a white person.

• There is evidence to suggest that ethnic minorities are more likely to be given harsher sentences than white people.

What are crime rates like amongst other ethnic minority groups?

It has generally been thought that whilst African-Caribbeans have disproportionally high levels of crime, other ethnic minority groups, such as Chinese and Asians, have much lower conviction rates. The reasons put forward to explain this are:

• Greater economic success and are therefore less likely to suffer from the marginality experienced by young blacks. Indians in particular have been very successful within the British business community, E.g. Mo Chaudry - multi-million pound entreprenuer from Stoke-on-Trent.

• Stronger family and community ties which impose strict controls over family members, which limits the opportunities to commit deviant acts.

• A distinct culture that provides a sense of identity and purpose. Black youngsters are more likely to embrace British culture and are therefor more bitter when they fail.

What does Manali Desai suggest about young Asian men?

• A study by Manali Desai (1999) found that young Asian men were beginning to rebel against their parent culture and take a aggressive stance in combating racist attacks.

• Some Bangladeshi boys were even cultivating a ‘Begali Bad Boy’ image to counteract the stereotype of them being weak and passive.

What does other Sociologists such as Claire Alexander argue?

• Not all sociologists have reached similar conclusions; Claire Alexander (2000) argued that the media image of a growing problem of Asian gangs was something of a myth.

• However, the Asian riots that occurred a year after her study dramatically contradicted her findings.

• Some Asian youngsters are adopting the criminal behaviour of their black and white working-class counterparts.

What is the issue over Ethnicity and Victimisation?

• Until recentlu, the focus of the ‘ethnicity and crime’ debate has been largely on the over representation of black people in the criminal justice system.

• However, more recently, sociologists have taken an interest in other issues such as the racist victimisation of ethnic minorities.

What is Racist victimisation?

• Racist Victimisation occurs when an individual is selected as a target because of their race, ethnicity or religion.

• Racist victimisation is nothing new, but was brought into greater public focus with the racist murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the subsequent inquiry into the handling of the police investigation (The Macpherson Inquiry 1999). This has led to the balck community claiming that they are ‘over-policed and under-protected’.

What did the Police report about racist incidents in crime statistics?

• The police recorded 54,000 racist incidents in England and Wales in 2018/19 (mostly damage to property or verbal harassment).

• However, most incidents go unreported. The CSEW estimates there were around 89,000 racially motivated incidents in 2018/19.

• The risk of being a victim of crime - not just racist crime - varies by ethnic groups.

• The 2018/19 CSEW shows that people from mixed ethnic backgrounds had a higher risk (27.9%) of becoming a victim of crime than did Black (18%), Asian (15.8%) or white people (15.7%).

What is the difference for why ethnic groups are factor for criminal factors?

• The differences may be partly the result of factors other than ethnicity e.g. factor such as being young, male and unemployed are strongly linked with being a victim of violent crime.

• Ethnic groups with a higher proportion of young males are thus likely to have higher rates of victimsation.

• However, some of these factors (such as unemployment) are themselves partly the result of discrimination.

Why do statistics not necessarily capture the victims’ experience of it?

• Whilst statistics record the instance of victimisation, they do not necessarily capture the victim’s experience of it.

• As Alice Sampson & Coretta Phillips (1992) note, racist victimisation tends to be ongoing over time, with repeated ‘minor instances of abuse and harassment interwoven with periodic incidents of physical violence.

• The Long-term psychological impact needs to be added to the physical injury and damage to property caused by the offenders.

What is a conclusion to this topic?

• Events, such as the murder of George Floyd in the USA, show that there are still high level of racism within the police force.

• BAMW communities still regard the police as ‘the enemy’ & are reluctant to help or join the police.