Ethnicity, Crime & Justice

Black people make up just 3% of the population but 13% of the prison population and Asians make up 6.5% of the population but 7.7% of the prison population. By contrast, white people are under-represented at all stages of the criminal justice process. These statistics only tell us about the involvement of the criminal justice system, not whether an ethnic group is more likely to commit crime

Alternative sources of statistics

Victim surveys - These ask individuals to say what crimes they have been victims of and we can gain information about ethnicity when asking about the person who committed the crime against them. They usually show that black people are over-represented in mugging crimes. However, they rely on victims' memory of events, they only cover personal crimes which make up just a 1/5 of all crimes and they exclude crimes by organisations so aren't representative of offenders in general

Self report studies - These ask individuals to disclose their own dishonest behaviour, with Graham & Bowling finding that blacks (43%) and (44%) had very similar rates of offending. These challenge the stereotype of black people as being more likely to offend. However, people could still lie about their behaviour

Ethnicity, racism & the criminal justice system

Policing - Since the 1970s there have been allegations of oppressive policing of minority ethnic communities including mass stop and search operations and armed raids

Stop and search - Minority groups are more likely to be stopped and searched and can be if there is reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Black people are 7x more likely to be stopped but only a small proportion result in arrest. Under the Terrorism Act police can search people and vehicles and Asians are more likely to be stopped under this. Members of these communities are more likely to think they are over policed and under protected

Explaining stop and search patterns

Police racism - The Macpherson report on the police investigation of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence concluded there was institutional racism within the Met Police which was why no one was convicted of his murder until 2012. Phillips & Bowling note that many officers hold negative stereotypes about ethnic minorities as criminals leading to deliberate targeting

Ethnic differences in offending - The number of stop and searches simply reflects ethnic differences in levels of offending. In low discretion stops police act on relevant information but in high discretion stops police act without specific intelligence and it is in these stops where officers can stereotype

Demographic factors - Ethnic minorities are over represented in the groups who are most likely to be stopped such as the unemployed and young. These groups are more likely to be stopped regardless of ethnicity

Arrests & cautions - The arrest rate for blacks was three times the rate for whites and are less likely to receive a caution because they are more likely to deny the offence

Prosecution & trial - The CPS is more likely to drop cases against ethnic minorities because the evidence presented is often weaker and based on stereotyping

Convctions & sentencing - Blacks and Asians are less likely to be found guilty which suggests discrimination but black offenders have imprisonment rates 3 percentage points higher which could be due to differences in the seriousness of the offences

Prison - 25% of the prison population were from minority ethnic groups with blacks being four times more likely to be in prison than whites. We can also note that in the US there is a similar pattern with 2 in 5 prisoners in local jails being black and 1 in 5 being hispanic

Until the 1970s there was general agreement that minority groups had a lower level of offending than the white population and it wasn't until the mid 1970s when black criminality came to be seen as a problem. It was not until the 1990s when Asian crime began to be seen as a problem with media concern about the growth of Asian gangs and the 9/11 attacks.

Left realism

Lea & Young argue that ethnic differences in the statistics reflect real differences in the levels of offending by different ethnic groups. They see crime as a result of relative deprivation and marginalisation. Racism has led to the exclusion of ethnic minorities who face higher levels of unemployment and poverty and at the same time the media's emphasis on consumerism promoted a sense of relative deprivation. They form delinquent subcultures because they can't achieve these goals by legitimate means producing higher levels of utilitarian crime such as robbery. As these groups are marginalised they become frustrated resulting in non utilitarian crime such as violence

They do not believe that discriminatory policing explains the differences in the statistics as over 90% of crimes are reported by members of the public. They also argue we cannot explain the differences between minorities in terms of police racism as blacks have higher rates of offending than Asians so the police would have to be selective in their racism

However, they are criticised for their views on the role of police racism. Asian arrest rates may be lower not because they are less likely to offend but because the police stereotype the groups differently, seeing Asians as passive. In addition, these stereotypes have changed too since their study after 9/11 so police see them as dangerous too, explaining the rising criminalisation rates for this group

Neo-Marxists

They argue that differences in the statistics do not represent reality but are the outcome of a process of social construction that stereotypes ethnic minorities as inherently more criminal than the majority population

Gilroy argues that the idea of black criminality is a myth created by racist stereotypes. As a result of the police acting on these stereotypes ethnic minorities come to be criminalised and therefore appear in greater numbers in the official statistics. Ethnic minority crime is a form of political resistance against a racist society. Most blacks and Asians in the UK originated from former colonies where they resisted pressure through riots. When they found themselves facing racism here they adopted the same techniques but it was criminalised here

However, he is criticised as most immigrants were law abiding in the 50s, most crime is intra-ethnic and Asian crime rates are similar to/lower than whites

Hall argues that the 1970s saw a moral panic over black muggers that served the interests of capitalism. When capitalism faced a crisis in the 70s with high unemployment provoking strikes the ruling class may need to use force to maintain control. There was an emergence of a media driven moral panic about the growth of mugging by black youths but really there was no evidence for a growth in this crime. The myth of the black mugger served as a scapegoat to distract attention from the capitalist crisis and came to symbolise the disintegration of the social order and divide the working class on social grounds

However, Downes & Rock argue that he is inconsistent in claiming that black street crime was not rising, but also that it was rising because of unemployment. In addition, they do not show how the capitalist crisis led to a moral panic and left realists argue that inner city residents' fears about mugging are not panicky but realistic

More recent approaches

Neighbourhood - Street robbery rates were highest in very poor areas and where very deprived young people came into contact with affulent groups. Black people are more likely to live in poor areas because of racial discrimination

Getting caught - Black offenders were more likely than white offenders to have been arrested. This is because they were more likely to commit crimes such as robbery where they could be easily identified

• Racist incidents - any incident that is perceived to be racist by the victim or another person
• Racially/religiously aggravated offences - where the offender is motivated by hostility towards members of a racial or religious group

The police recorded 54,000 racist incidents in 2014/5 but most go unreported. The risk of being a victim of any sort of crime varies by ethnic group. People from mixed ethnic backgrounds had a higher risk of becoming a victim of crime (27%) than whites. (15%) Racist victimisation tends to be ongoing over time with repeated minor instances of abuse

Responses to crime range from situational crime prevention measures such as fireproof doors to organised self defence campaigns. Such responses need to be understood in the context of accusations of under protection by the police who have often ignored the racist dimensions of victimisation such as the Macpherson report on the Stephen Lawrence case