Background

Historical development

• Lombroso (1876): directly linked race with crime

  • Concluded that the coloured races and even “other” Whites (since the idea of race was centred around White northern Europe) shared many characteristics with “habitual delinquents”

• After WW2, there was an attempt to separate racial ideology from social/physical sciences

  • Montagu (1943): race is a fallacy based on ideology

• Increasing focus on ethnicity

  • Based on self-defined collectives rather than strictly biology

• 1960s Britain: anti-immigrant and racist

  • As a result of significant immigration from the former colonies

  • Major political parties were committed to reducing and stopping immigration

• 1970s: media images of “black criminality” led to entrenched views (Gilroy)

  • General population began to associate black people or ethnic minorities with violence and disorder

• In 2001, 8% of the general population was made up of ethnic minorities

  • Because immigrants mostly settled where there were jobs which the indigenous community did not want, they are not evenly spread

  • Most are in deprived neighbourhoods and have educational under-achievement as well as higher unemployment

• Heaven and Hudson (2005): absurd that ethnicity matters for crimes involving blacks and Asians but not when whites are the offenders

Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (Macpherson, 1999)

High profile racial killing in 1993

• 5 suspects arrested but not convicted

• Accusations of corruption and race considerations in the investigation

• 2 suspects retried and sentenced in 2012

Public Inquiry commissioned by Home Secretary, carried out by Macpherson

• Found evidence of institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police and other institutions

• Found that the original investigation had been incompetent and corrupt, although the evidence was not as compelling as that showing racism

Criminal Justice v Racial Justice (Sveinsson, 2012)

“Minority ethnic people remain over-surveilled and underprotected within all stages of our criminal justice system”

• Black people more likely to be stopped and searched, listed in the DNA database and make up the prison population

• Media portrays Black culture as being inherently criminogenic, resulting in racist stereotypes

• Institutional Racism is not entirely eradicated

  • Trever Phillips (2009): Institutional racism no longer relevant to police practice

  • BUT some policies and practices still “systematically target and disadvantage ethnic minorities”, especially those that give officers discretion (Bowling)

    • E.g. stop and search, especially under CJPOA 1994 s60 (can stop and search without reasonable suspicion)

• Minorities are also at a socio-economic disadvantage

  • Webster: Many studies fail to control for socio-demographic factors when making comparisons to guide practice and decisions

  • African Caribbean men more likely to be young offender prisoners than University undergraduates

Lack of attention to the problem

• No clear government steering on the matter

• Voluntary sector faces funding problems and cannot act

Statistics

Prison

• Runnymede Trust: Black people make up 15% of the prison population

• MoJ (2009): 35% of male prisoners and 27% of female prisoners were from ethnic minorities

  • Increases in prison populations are greater for Black and Asian populations

  • Increases in prison population have been greater for black and Asian populations than white

  • Black: 6.8 incarcerated per 1000 nationals, White: 1.3 per 1000

Offending

• According to self-report studies, White and Black patterns of offending are very similar

• Webster: Self-reported statistics show that even where young White males reported higher drug use than young Black males, Whites were underrepresented for drugs offences while Blacks were “substantially overrepresented”

Victimisation

• MoJ (2009): Black people 5 times as likely to get murdered, Asians 2 times as likely

  • NOTE (Bowling and Phillips, 2002): Most homicide is intra-ethnic

Stop and Search

• Black: 7 times more likely

• Asian: 2 times more likely

• Webster: Might be related to class and geography, not just ethnicity

  • Black suspects less likely to admit offences because more likely to be arrested when innocent, or have less faith in CJS fairness

• Phillips and Brown (1998): Black and Asian people were more likely than White people to be arrested and charged without sufficient evidence (more likely for CPS to terminate cases)

Issues

What is race/ethnicity?

• Heaven and Hudson (2005): Ethnicity tends to only be a consideration when dealing with BME offenders but not White offenders, which is absurd

• Administrative categories used are NOT CONSISTENT

  • Categories in the CSEW are a mix of race, colour, nationality and geographic origin

  • Bowling and Phillips (2002): Categories fail to take into account “internal heterogeneity” of the groups

Kautt (2012): Ascribed vs Asserted Ethnicity and the British Crime Survey

• Types of ethnicity

  • Ascribed ethnicity: based on perceptions of another party

    • Might be affected by mutable characteristics (e.g. dressing)

    • Even immutable characteristics (physical appearance) can be misleading, especially for those of mixed origin

    • Relevant in provoking racial crimes and when victims identify offenders

  • Asserted ethnicity: based on self-identification

    • Relevant in determining whether they view themselves as victims of racially-motivated crimes

• Other factors

  • Language: can affect communication with the local population

    • Ascribed: causes differential treatment of a non-local speaker

  • Nationality

    • Ascribed: immigration policy

    • Asserted: which community the person identifies with

  • Religion

    • Ascribed: social connotations (e.g. terrorists – Catholics or Muslims)

    • Asserted: influence of prescribed beliefs on personal identity

• BCS Categorisation

  • Previously, respondents were ascribed a race (same as offenders)

    • White, Black, Asian, Chinese, Others

  • Now, “respondent-asserted” ethnicity is relevant instead (same categories as that used in the 2001 UK...

Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our Criminology Notes.