1. Starter: Gender & Crime
Usefulness of official stats?
Alternative measures of crime
Chivalry Thesis
Sex Role Theory
(Cohen)
Control Theory (Heidensohn)
Liberation Theory (Adler)
Problem of masculinity?
Hegemonic masculinities
Postmodernity & Men

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fou_HD2S5KA I shot the sheriff
Ethnicity and Crime
I shot the sheriff

3. Ethnicity and Crime: An Overview
The statistics
Racism in the CJS
Left Realism
Neo-Marxism
Ethnicity and Victimisation

4. What percentage of the UK is…
White
Asian
Black
Mixed race and other groups
*2001 census stats

5. The facts (2001 stats) 91% of people in the UK are white
9% are non-white
5% Asian
2% Black (Caribbean and African)
2% mixed and other

6. Official Statistics (Police)
Black ethnic groups are ‘over-represented.’
While Black people only made up 2.8% of the population, they made up:
7.7% of arrests
6.2% of cautions
12.1% of the prison population
Why?

7. Official Statistics
Asians – 4.7% population but 6% of prison population.
Asian groups are only very slightly over-represented.
White people are under-represented – less likely to be arrested, cautioned and sent to prison.

8. Key Questions to ask about official stats?
1. Are ethnic minority groups more crime-prone? If so, why – what explanations do we have already?
2. Do the statistics reflect a criminal justice system that treats people differently? If so, why?

9. In 2008, the Ministry of Justice reported that, compared to white people:
Afro Caribbean's were: more likely to be arrested for robbery; three times more likely to be cautioned by the police; three and a half times more likely to be arrested; if arrested, more likely to be charged and face court proceedings than to receive a caution; more likely, if found guilty, to receive a custodial (prison) sentence; five times more likely to be in prison.
Asians were: twice as likely to be stopped and searched (mainly for drugs); more likely to be charged and face court proceedings than to receive a caution; more likely to receive a custodial sentence if found guilty; more likely to be arrested for fraud and forgery.

10. Alternative Sources of Statistics
Self Report Studies
British Crime Survey
(Victim Surveys)
Graham & Bowling (1995) Blacks and Whites have very similar rates of offending, while Asians had much lower rates.
Sharp & Budd (2005) whites and ‘mixed’ groups most likely to say they had committed an offence.
Black people over-represented among those identified as offenders.
Crime is intra-ethnic.
Within ethnic groups. 90% of ‘white’ victims report a white offender.

11. Alternative Sources of Statistics
Self Report Studies
Be careful –
Rely on victims memories.
Only cover personal crimes.
Exclude under 16s.
Excludes white collar crimes
British Crime Survey
(Victim Surveys)
Graham & Bowling (1995) blacks and whites have very similar rates of offending, while Asians had much lower rates.
Sharp & Budd (2005) whites and ‘mixed’ groups most likely to say they had committed an offence.
Black people over-represented among those identified as offenders.
Crime is intra-ethnic.
Self report –
Demand characteristics?

12. Methods in Context Question
Assess the strengths and weaknesses of using questionnaires to measure ethnicity and crime. (20 marks)
Assess the strengths and weaknesses of using official statistics to measure ethnicity and crime. (20 marks)
Assess the strengths and weaknesses of using interviews to measure ethnicity and crime. (20 marks)
Assess the usefulness of using official statistics to measure ethnicity and crime (21 marks)

13. Victims of Crime Why do you think this is the case?
Ethnic minorities are also more likely to be victims of crime disproportionately to their numbers, and this is particularly true for ethnic minority women.
Why do you think
this is
the case?

14. Ethnicity And Victimisation
The BCS (British Crime Survey) and victim surveys are the main providers of information about the type and incidence of racially motivated crimes.
Most recorded racist incidents are crimes against property and verbal harassment.
Most incidents are unreported.

15. Ethnicity, Racism and Criminal Justice System
Policing
Stop and Search
Arrests and Cautions
Prosecution
Trial
Conviction
Sentencing
Pre-sentence Reports
Prison

16. Explaining Stop and Search Stats.
Police Racism
Demographic Factors
Ethnic Differences in Offending

17. Is The Criminal Justice System Prejudiced?
A recent undercover programme TV highlighted overt racism among certain Police officers in training

18. PSI Report (1983)
Racist language and jokes were common among Met Police Officers
A culture of institutional racism existed

19. ‘Canteen culture’ Meaning Origin
The colloquial name for the conservative and discriminatory attitudes held by some sections of the British police forces.
Origin
Describes the attitudes of some of the lower ranks of the British police force, who resist change and are comfortable with 'institutional racism‘. The term canteen is used because it conjures up images of officers sat around in the canteen, casually exchanging racist language, stereotypes etc.

20. Fitzgerald & Hough 2001
Confidence in the police was low
Highest levels of dissatisfaction were found among young WC black males

21. Stephen Lawrence: Application (AO2)
Stephen Lawrence, a black British teenager (born 13 September 1974) from Eltham, southeast London, was stabbed to death while waiting for a bus on the evening of 22 April 1993.[1]
After the initial investigation, five suspects were arrested but never convicted.[2] It was suggested during the course of investigation that the murder had a racist motive and that Lawrence was killed because he was black, and that the handling of the case by the police and Crown Prosecution Service was affected by issues of race leading to an inquiry.[3]
In 1999, an inquiry headed by Sir William Macpherson examined the original Metropolitan police investigation and concluded that the force was "institutionally racist" and has been called 'one of the most important moments in the modern history of criminal justice in Britain'.[4]
The case is important in British legal history as it heavily contributed to the creation and passing of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 that altered the centuries-old principle of double jeopardy—which stipulated that a person could not be tried twice for the same offence.

22. BBC Report on Stephen Lawrence

23. Reasons for criminality
Structuralist views:
Social Constructionist views
Neo-marxists
The criminal justice system is unfair – product of racist labelling and discrimination
Left Realists
The statistics reflect REAL differences in the levels of offending

24. Reasons for high criminality (Structural)
Lea & Young (left realists) – first criminologists to acknowledge that black people were not simply victims of a racist police force and criminal justice system but are actually more likely to be involved with street crime than whites.
Reasons
Marginalisation
Relative Deprivation
Subcultural response
Their explanation of crime is based on the concepts of relative deprivation, marginalisation and subculture. Minorities suffer relative deprivation not only in areas shared with sections of the white working class (high unemployment and poor environment), but also racial discrimination and racially motivated attacks. Young unemployed blacks are marginalised in that they are unorganised and have few pressure groups to lobby on their behalf, so their frustrations are more likely to be expressed in illegal activity.
Subcultural responses include the hustling subculture described by Pryce in his ethnographic study of St Paul’s in Bristol, with young blacks involved in petty street crime, drug dealing and prostitution, getting by from day to day.

25. Lea & Young (1993)
Racism leads to marginalisation and economic exclusion. EMG higher rates of poverty & deprivation. At the same time, media emphasises consumerism which promotes relative deprivation – goals which many are unable to meet by legitimate means.

26. Lea & Young (1993)
Delinquent subcultures as a response to marginalisation and relative deprivation. Utilitarian crime to obtain consumer goods. Non-utilitarian crime to express frustration as their voice is not heard (violence, rioting).

27. Lea & Young (1993)
Racism in the police cannot be the sole cause as different minority groups have different crime rates.
Official stats are caused by real differences in offending caused by real differences in deprivation.

28. Lea & Young - Critique
Are arrest rates different for ‘blacks’ and ‘asians’ as police hold different stereotypes about them? Are these stereotypes changing? Are young muslims now seen as a bigger threat post 7/7.

29. Neo-Marxist view: The stats are a social construct.
The over-representation of EMGs in crime statistics is a social construct, created as a result of discrimination by the police and other criminal justice agencies. There is considerable evidence of racist views held by police officers. They do not reflect reality.
Racism in UK Police Force pt1.

30. Unfair Treatment and Racism
Reiner (2000): Canteen culture amongst the police, including: suspicion, macho values and racism, which encourages racist stereotypes and a mistrust of those from non white backgrounds.
Bowling and Phillips (2002): Higher levels of robbery among black people could be the product of labelling that arises from the use of regular stop and search procedures, which in turn leads to the self fulfilling prophecy.

31. Sharp and Budd (2005)
Black offenders were most likely to have contact with the criminal justice system in their lifetime and were more likely to have been arrested, been to court and convicted. This is despite their lower levels of offending compared to white people generally and white youths in particular.
Black and Asian offenders are more likely to be charged rather than cautioned, remanded rather than bailed, given prison sentences rather than probation/community punishment compared to white people. This suggests that they are treated unfairly by the criminal justice system.

32. Waddington (2004)
Published in the British Journal of Criminology argues that the police do stop a proportionately higher number of blacks compared to whites.
However, he argues that there are more ethnic minority youths out at night in inner cities and that the police simply target those in high risk areas. If the areas is disproportionately represented by young black males they are more likely to be stopped and searched – because of where they are rather than their ethnicity

33. Paul Gilroy – Neo-Marxist
(1982) The Empire Strikes Back – Race and Racism in 1970s. (1987) There Aint No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation

34. Paul Gilroy – Neo-Marxist
Black criminality is a myth created by racist stereotypes. In reality, these groups are no more or less criminal than any other. A racist criminal justice system means they appear in greater numbers in the official statistics.

35. Gilroy: the myth of black criminality
A Neo-Marxist who agrees that young blacks are targeted by the media and the police, but argues that black crime is different in that it is a conscious continuation, in a new context, of anti-colonial struggles in the West Indies.
It is therefore political and potentially revolutionary, a political response to inequality and racism.
Rastafarianism, for example, is not just a religion; it contains a set of revolutionary political ideas about overthrowing white authority (“Babylon”), and tends to bring its followers into confrontation with the police over, for example, marijuana use.

36. Gilroy – Crime as a political act
Migrant groups learnt how to deal resist British oppression through riots and demonstrations at the end of Empire.
Same techniques used when facing racism and oppression in the UK.
Black crime is an example of people fighting back against the injustice of a racist society.

37. Crime as a political act
Vandalism is a symbolic attack on society’s obsession with property.

38. Gilroy - Evaluation
Unique interpretation of crime and deviance incorporating colonialism and racism.
First generation of migrants – very law-abiding. How have techniques of resistance been passed down?
Most crime is INTRA-ETHNIC.
Gilroy romantices street crime.
Asian crime rate are much lower than ‘blacks’.

39. Stuart Hall (1932 – 2014)
Founding Father of Cultural Studies (Birmingham University).
Hegemony and culture

40. Stuart Hall: Policing the Crises
Racism on TV

41. How have things changed?
Mass immigration is destroying the UK and turning it into a "foreign land".
He cited his journey from London's Charing Cross to Hither Green as the trigger for his comments, as he hadn't heard any English spoken.
It made him "uncomfortable" because he "didn't understand it".

43. Are we being swamped?

44. but immigration is probably good for the economy
In 2009 academics at University College London found that migrants from the A8 countries of central and eastern Europe who joined the EU in 2004 were 60 per cent less likely than native-born Brits to claim benefits, and 58 per cent less likely to live in council housing. I
n every year since 2004 the A8 immigrants had paid in more than they had taken out. They were younger, better educated and less likely to claim state benefits. Net contribution to UK economy £22bn.
A snapshot study by the Department of Work and Pensions – 16.4% UK national claimed benefit VS 6.7% of non-uk nationals

45. Stuart Hall: Policing the crises
Moral panic over black muggers. 1970s economic crises shielded by moral panic about a ‘new’ crime – mugging. The myth of the black mugger served as a scapegoat to distract attention from the crises in capitalism

46. Stuart Hall The Black Mugger Crises of Capitalism
Represents disintegration of society.
The problem in society is black youth.
The moral panic divides the working class.
Black crime not just a product of media and police labelling.
Crises of capitalism further marginalises black youth which drive some towards crime.

47. Stuart Hall: Evaluation
Developed a whole new approach in social sciences. Cultural studies as an off-shoot of Neo-Marxist ideas with cultural context.
Inconsistent claims – Black crime not rising but also rising?
No evidence of how crises led to moral panic.
Left realism – fear of mugging is real not a panic.

48. Ethnicity and Media
How do the media report on ethnicity and crime today?
When is ethnicity mentioned?

49. Evaluation (AO2)
It has often been claimed that black crime is no higher than crime by the majority, that the official statistics reflect discriminatory practices by the police and courts. Sometimes questioning this claim can be presented as racist.
On the other hand, however, and sometimes in the same accounts, it is claimed that high rates of some crimes, especially street crimes, are to be expected, part of the survival strategy of a reserve army of labour which finds itself unwanted, an understandable response to disadvantage and discrimination.
Like other Marxists studying crime, Gilroy can be seen as reading meanings which may not be there into the behaviour of young blacks; they are unlikely to agree with his explanation of their behaviour.

50. Why? Victimization UNDER-REPORTED UNDER-RECORDED
Racist Victimization – an individual is made a target because of their race, ethnicity or religion.
Racist incidents
Racially aggravated offences – wounding criminal damage, harassment.
Official stats – recorded 61,000 incidence. BCS recorded 184,000 (2006/7)
UNDER-REPORTED
UNDER-RECORDED
Why?

51. Victimisation
EMG are over-represented and have a higher risk of becoming a victim.
Mixed – 36%
Blacks – 27%
Asians – 25%
Whites – 24%
Why?
EMG higher numbers of young, unemployed men, live in inner-cities.

52. Summary
EMG more likely to be victims of crime while being over-policed and under-represented.

53. Ethnicity and the criminal justice system 1. Policing
Key facts
Official statistics say black people are:
7 times more likely to be stopped and searched.
3 ½ times more likely to be arrested.
5 times more likely to be in prison than their white counterparts.
Victim studies say black people are more likely to be identified as offenders & most crime is intra –ethnic meaning it takes place among rather than between ethnic groups.
Self-report studies conclude that black people have similar rates of offending to whites if not lower.
Ethnicity and the criminal justice system
1. Policing
Many allegations of oppressive policing from minority ethnic communities are made.
Stop and search
Lots of stop an search is perhaps due to racism and the targeting of ethnic minorities.
3. Arrests and cautions
More likely to be arrested and cautioned perhaps due to a mistrust of police and not admitting to the offence.
Ethnicity and crime
4. Prosecution & conviction
Crown prosecution Service more likely to drop cases against ethnic minorities. Black and Asian defendants are less likely to be found guilty.
5. Sentencing and Prison
Custodial sentences more likely to be given to black offenders. Blacks and Asians over-represented in prisons and more likely to be given longer sentences.

54. Explaining differences in offending
Neo-Marxist - Stuart Hall et al (Policing the crisis)
Combines Marxism and Labelling theory.
Economic conditions in the 1990’s were bad, government look for a scapegoat.
Young black muggers are labelled and a moral panic is created about their behaviour in the media.
Young black males commit no more crime than any other group but labelling and the economy makes it seem like they do.
Neo-Marxist - Paul Gilroy
Black people commit more crime because they resent the cultural experience of colonialism i.e. being taken over and having black slaves sent to Britain to work. This experience causes resentment in young black males which makes them commit crime.
Left realism
Ethnic minorities commit more crime because racism in wider has caused them to be marginalised, coupled with economic exclusion such as high unemployment and poor housing. Left realists don’t believe that racism in the police can account for higher crime because black people have a higher offending rate than Asians.
Ethnicity and crime
Victimisation
Police recorded 61,000 racists incidents while the BCS reports 184,000 many go unreported. People from mixed ethnic backgrounds were more likely to be victims of crimes.
Stephen Lawrence
The death of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 by a white gang caused outcry as police botched the investigation. The inquiry called the Macpherson report declared institutional racism in the police.

55. Ethnicity Assessment Questions
Examine some of the reasons for ethnic differences in experiences of the criminal justice system (21 marks).
Assess sociological explanations of ethnic differences both in offending and in victimisation. (21 marks) Jun 12
Assess the view that ethnic differences in crime rates are the result of the ways in which the criminal justice system operates. 
(21 marks) Jan 10