Ethnicity and Criminalisation
STATISTICS:
Black people make up just 3% of the population, but 13.1% of the prison population.
Asians make up 6.5% of the population, but 7.7% of the prison population
Ministry of Justice (2008):
‘Members of our black communities are seven times more likely than their White counterparts to be stopped and searched, three and a half times more likely to be arrested, and five times more likely to be in prison’.
This shows ethnic minorities probably make up disproportionate amounts in official statistics (even if not criminals).
This indicates we should be wary of official statistics on crime as typifications of ethnicities can make it so that official statistics may actually be disproportionate and inaccurate – decisions of juries and police.
VICTIM SURVEYS:
The Crime Survey of England and Wales is an example of a victim survey.
They ask individuals to say what crimes they’ve been victims of (usually during the last 12 months).
They ask victims to identify the ethnicity of the person who committed the crime against them.
These gain statistics on ethnicity by asking ethnicity of the criminal.
‘Mugging’ has no legal definition, but is used to cover robberies and some thefts. Black people are overrepresented in victim surveys.
Victim surveys show that crime is often intra-ethnic.
LIMITATIONS OF VICTIM SURVEYS:
Rely on victims’ memories of events. According to Phillips and Bowling, evidence suggests that white victims may ‘over-identify’ blacks – saying the offender was black even when they’re not sure.
Only cover personal crimes, which make up only about a fifth of all crimes.
They excludes the under 10s: minority ethnic groups contain a higher proportion of young people.
They exclude crimes by and against organisations (such as businesses), so they tell us nothing about the ethnicity of white collar and corporate criminals.
SELF-REPORT STUDIES:
Ask individuals to disclose their own dishonest and violent behaviour.
Graham and Bowling’s sample of 2,500 people:
Black (43%) and White (44%) had very similar rates of offending, while Indian (30%), Pakistani (28%) and Bangladeshi (13%) had much lower rates.
Sharpe and Budd:
Note that the 2003 Offending, Crime and Justice Survey of 12,000 people found that White and those of ‘mixed’ ethnic origins were most likely to say they had committed a criminal offence (around 40%) followed by Black (28%) and Asian (21%).
Home Office:
Conducted nine self-report studies on drug use since the early 1990s, all with remarkably similar findings.
Sharpe and Budd: 27% of males of ‘mixed’ ethnicity said they’d used drugs (mostly cannabis) in the last year, compared with 16% of both Black and White males and 5% of Asian males.
Use of class A drugs such as heroine and cocaine was much higher among White (6%) than Black (2%) or Asian (1%).
This shows self-report studies:
Challenge the stereotype that black people are more likely to offend than white people.
But they support the idea that Asians are less likely to offend.
Limitations:
Rely on honesty and criminals aren’t known for their honesty.
ETHNICITY, RACISM AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM:
Phillips and Bowling: there have been many allegations of racist policing since the 1970s 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’.
Police can use stop and search if they have reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
Black people are 7 times more likely to be stopped and searched and Asian people are over 2 times more likely. Only a small portion of stop and searches lead to an arrest.
Under the Terrorism Act 2000, police can stop and search persons or vehicles whether or not they have reasonable suspicion – research showing Asians are stopped under this Act more.
Phillips and Bowling: these groups therefore feel over-policed and under-protected. They’re therefore less likely to say that police acted politely when they’re stopped.
During 2010-2014, police deployed tasers 38,000 times. For Asians the chances of being involved was three in 10,000 and for Whites six, bur for Black it was 18 in 10,000.
EXPLAINING ‘STOP AND SEARCH’ PATTERNS:
There is police racism in stop and search:
The MacPherson Report on the police investigation of the racist murder of the Black teenager Stephen Lawrence concluded that there was institutional racism within the Met police.
Others have found deeply ingrained racist attitudes among individual officers. Phillips and Bowling found many officers held negative stereotypes of ethnic minorities as criminals, leading to more stop and searches.
These stereotypes are upheld and endorsed by the ‘canteen culture’ of rank and file officers.
There is real ethnic difference in offending:
The disproportionality of stop and searches simply reflects ethnic differences in levels of offending.
However, it’s useful to distinguish between low discretion and high discretion stops:
In low discretion stops, police act on relevant information about a specific offence, for example, a victims description of the offender.
In high discretion stops, police act without specific intelligence. It’s in these stops, where officers use their stereotypes, that disproportionality and discrimination are most likely.
There are demographic factors like age and class:
Ethnic minorities are over represented in the population who are most likely to be stopped, such as the young, the unemployed, manual workers and urban dwellers.
These groups are all more likely to be stopped, regardless of ethnicity, but they’re also groups who have a higher proportion of ethnic minorities in them, and so minorities get stopped more.
ARRESTS AND CAUTIONS:
Figures for England and Wales show that in 2014/15 the arrest rate for Blacks was three times the rate for Whites. By contrast, once arrested, Blacks and Asians were less likely than Whites to receive a caution.
There are two reasons why this is likely:
Ethnic minority groups are more likely to deny the offence and to exercise their right to legal advice.
Not admitting the offence means they can’t be let off with a caution so are more likely to be charged instead.
PROSECUTION AND TRIAL:
The CPS decide whether a case brought by the police should be prosecuted in court – whether there’s a realistic possibility of conviction and whether prosecution is in the public interest.
They’re more likely to drop cases against ethnic minorities due to weaker evidence and police stereotyping.
Ethnic minorities are more likely to elect for a Jury in a Crown court perhaps due to distrust of magistrates’ impartiality.
They’re then taking the risk that Crown courts can impose more serious sentences if they’re convicted.
CONVICTIONS AND SENTENCING:
Black and Asian defendants are less likely to be found guilty, suggesting CPS are bringing weaker, or less serious, cases forward which are therefore thrown out of the courts.
Black offenders have imprisonment rates three percentage points higher, and Asian offenders five points higher, than white offenders – this could be down to the difference in seriousness of offences, or the rate of previous convictions.
Hood’s study of five Crown Courts in 1992:
Even when these factors were considered, black men were 5% more likely to receive a custodial sentence, and sentences were on average three months (and Asian men nine months) longer than white men.
PRE-SENTENCE REPORTS:
They’re potential reason for the harsher prison sentences.
This is because they’re a report written by a probation officer to assess the risk of an offender which aids a magistrate in deciding on an appropriate sentence.
Hudson and Bramhall:
For Asians, these reports allowed for unwilting discrimination. Reports on Asian offenders were less comprehensive and suggested they were less remorseful than white offenders. Place this bias in the context of the demonising of 9/11.
PRISON:
In 2014, just over a quarter of the prison population were from ethnic minority groups. Among British nationals, 5.5 per 1000 Black were in jail compared with 1.6 per 1000 Asian and 1.4 per 1000 White people.
As such, Blacks were four times more likely to be in prison than White; Black and Asian offenders are more likely than Whites to be serving longer sentences (of four years or more).
Within the total prison population, all minority groups have a higher than average proportion of prisoners on remand. This is because ethnic minorities are less likely to be granted bail while awaiting trial.
The existence of similar patterns in other countries: in the USA, two out of five prisoners that are held in local jails are Black, while one in five is Hispanic.