Topic 6 - Ethnicity, crime and justice

Ethnicity and Criminalisation -

• Three main sources of statistics:
  • Official Statistics
  • Victim surveys
  • Self-Report Studies
• Official Statistics = show ethnic differences in the liklihood of being involved in the criminal justice system (CJS)
  • e.g black people are 7x more likely to be stopped and searched and 5x more likely to be in prison than white people.
  • Hiwever, victim surveys and self-report studies throw a more direct light on ethnicty and offending
• Victim Surveys = Ask individuals to say what crime they have been victims of
  • sometimes they ask respndants to identify the ethnicity of the offender against them. e.g in the case of a 'mugging', black people are significantly more likely to be identified as offenders.
• Self-report Studies = ask individuals to disclose crimes they have commited
  • GRAHAM AND BOWLING (1995) found that blacks and whites had almost identical rates of offending, while Asians had much lower rates
  • Other self-report studies show similar patterns, discrediting the stereotype of blacks being more likely than whites to offend
• Overall, the evidence on ethnicity and offending is inconsistent. Official statistics and victim surveys indicate higher rates of offending by blacks, but self-report studies do not.

Racism and Criminal Justice System -

• There are ethnic differences at every stage of the criminal justice process. 
• Policing = 
  • PHILLIPS AND BOWLING (2007) note that there have been many allegations of oppressive policing of minority communities, including:
    • Mass stop and search operation, paramilitary tactics, excessive surveillance, armes raids, police violence and deaths in custody, and a failure to respond effectively to racist violence.
    • They note that minorities are more likely to think they are 'over-policed and under-protected'.
• Stop and Search =
  • • Black people = 7x mire likely than whites to be stopped and searche
    • Asian = 3x more likely to be stopped and searched than others under the terroism act 2000
    • only a small proportion of stops end in arrests
  • These patterns may be explained by:
    • Ethnic Differences in offending = some ethnic groups are more likely to offend so police act on relevent information about a specific offence
    • Police Racism = members of ethnic minority may be stopped ore because of police racism. In high discretion stops, police act without specific information and are more likely to discriminate
    • Demographic factors = ethnic minorities are over-represented in the groups most likely to be stopped regardless of their ethnicity, e.g. young, unemployed and urban dwellers, so they get stopped more.
• Arrests and caution =
  • Arrest rate for black people is over 3x the rate for whites. By contrast, once arrested, blacks and asians are less likely to recieve a caution than whites.
• Prosecution and Trial =
  • The Crown Prosecution Court (CPS) decides whether a case brought by the police should be prosecuted.
    • The CPS is more likely to drop cases against minorities than against whites, and blacks and asians are less likely to be found guilty than whites
    • when cases do go ahead, ethnic minorities are more likely to elect for a Crown Court trial by jury, rather…