ethnicity

What causes the crime? (ethnicity)

Ethnic Differences in Crime (Shortened)

• Marxists: Ethnicity and poverty often overlap, leading to more material crime.

• Right Realists: High crime rates in urban areas are caused by weak community control and high population turnover.

• Left Realists: Crime is caused by relative deprivation (feeling worse off than others).

• Interactionists: Ethnic minorities are labelled as criminals, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

• Anti-racists: Institutional racism in the CJS, especially policing, unfairly targets Black and Asian groups, causing mistrust and deviance.

AO3: These explanations show how inequality and discrimination can affect crime, but they may ignore personal choice.

Criminalisation

Criminalisation

• (AO2) This is the process through which individuals and actions are turned into criminal actions through the criminal justice system; labelling takes place.

• Deviant individual's actions may not be defined as criminal if the crime is undetected, if the law has changed or the courts 'say so.

There are 5 processes of criminalisation:

• Policing

• Arrests & Cautions

• Prosecution & Trials

• Convictions and Sentencing

• Prison

Policing

Policing and Ethnicity

• Institutional racism in policing was highlighted by the Macpherson Report.

• Reiner argued that police canteen culture can reinforce racist attitudes and negative views of positive discrimination.

• Black people are 5–7 times more likely to be stopped and searched than White people.

• Asian people are around twice as likely to be stopped and searched.

• Only 4% of police officers come from BAME backgrounds.

AO3: These statistics may be partly explained by the fact that BME groups tend to be younger and are more likely to spend time in urban public areas where street crime is more common.

Arrested and cautioned

Arrests and Cautions

• Black people account for 8.3% of arrests but only 3% of the population.

• They are more likely to be arrested for offences they did not commit.

• Black and Asian people are less likely to receive a caution after arrest than White people.

• According to Philips and Bowling, Black and Asian people may be more likely to remain silent and deny offences because they distrust the police and feel over-policed.

AO3: Asian people are half as likely to be tasered then White people, while Black people are three times more likely to be tasered, suggesting differences in police treatment between ethnic groups.

Prosecution and trials

Prosecution and Trial:

• The Crown

• Prosecution Service is more likely to drop cases against the

• BAME community (weak to weak evidence)

  

• (AO3)

• However, BAME more likely to opt for a trial by jury in a Crown Court rather than by a magistrate in the magistrate's court due to mistrust of the magistrate's impartiality.

• Crown Courts tend to impose more harsh sentences.

Convictions and sentencing

Convictions and Sentencing

• BAME people are less likely to be found guilty in court.

• However, if found guilty, they are more likely to receive a prison sentence.

• They are also more likely to be imprisoned for Class A drug offences and burglary.

AO3: Pre-sentence reports may be biased against BAME offenders. They may appear less remorseful to probation officers, making it harder to receive a more favourable sentence.

Prisons

Prison (Simplified)

• Around 1 in 4 prisoners are Black.

• Black people are 4 times more likely to be in prison than White people.

• Black and Asian prisoners are more likely to be serving long-term sentences (4+ years).

• Ethnic minorities are less likely to be granted bail and are more likely to remain on remand (held in custody before trial).

What institutional racism?

Institutional Racism (Simplified)

Institutional racism is when an organisation’s policies, practices, or culture unfairly disadvantage people from ethnic minority groups, even if individuals are not intentionally racist.

• The Macpherson Report (1999) found institutional racism within the Metropolitan Police after the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

• The report criticised the police investigation and made 70 recommendations, including taking racist incidents more seriously, increasing diversity in the police force, and improving trust with ethnic minority communities.

Evidence

• The Secret Policeman exposed racist attitudes among some police recruits in Greater Manchester Police through undercover filming by Mark Daly.

• The documentary showed racist comments and behaviour towards ethnic minorities.

• It led to public outrage and calls for improvements in police training and culture.

AO3: Supporters argue this provides evidence of racism within policing, but critics argue that the actions of some officers do not necessarily prove that the entire police institution is racist.

Victimisation and ethnicity

Victimisation and Ethnicity

Racist victimisation is the targeting of people by criminals based on their race, ethnicity or religion.

CSEW in 2012/13:

• The risk of being a victim was 7.2% for BAME and 5% for Whites.

• Higher proportion of BAME communities in urban areas with higher levels of street crime.

• 124,000 racially motivated incidents.

• (AO3) Per capital racially motivated incidents higher in rural areas.

Police Recorded Figures;

• 11% of murder victims were Black and 9% Asian (against 3.1% and 6.4% of the population).

• 30,000 racially and religious aggravated incidents.

• Hate crimmes up 67% in some police forces.

• Last season there were hate crime incidents (79% of which related to races) at 193 football matches, up from 131.

• (AO3) Increase attributed to;
  ISIS effect

Better Recording - more victims willing to come forward.