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Answer
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Hint
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Robert Reiner (2000)
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This sociologist points to a racist 'canteen culture' among the police, which includes suspicion, macho values and racism, and this encourages racist stereotypes and a mistrust of those from non-white backgrounds.
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Paul Gilroy (1982)
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This Neo-Marxist sociologist argued that crime by Black people, particularly in the 1970s, was a form of political action, representing a culture of resistance to inequality and oppressors in the form of police racism and harassment: -He denied there was greater criminality among Black people than White people, suggesting this was a myth created by negative stereotyping by the police and the media, who saw minority ethnic groups as untrustworthy, with African-Caribbean youth labelled as potential 'muggers' and Asians as potential illegal immigrants. -Therefore, as a result of the police and criminal justice system acting on these negative racist stereotypes, ethnic minority groups came to be criminalised and therefore appear in greater numbers in official statistics. -Since many people from ethnic minority backgrounds originated in the former British colonies at the time, many of them used riots and demonstrations, which they had learnt to utilise, in order to resist oppression from imperial rule. -They used these methods in Britain as a method of defending themselves against racism, but their political struggle was criminalised by the British state.
Evaluations: -He seems to be imposing his own interpretation of the meaning of Black crime when he describes it as a political act against oppressors. Black crime, including mugging, is often committed against other Black or poor people, so it is hard to see it as a resistance to oppression. -Lea & Young argue first-generation immigrants in the 1950s and 60s were very law-abiding, so it is unlikely that they passed down a tradition of anti-colonial struggle to their children. -Lea & Young found most crime is intra-ethnic (criminals and their victims usually have the same ethnic background) so it can't be seen as an anti-colonial struggle against racism. They argue, like critical criminologists, that he romanticises street crime as somehow revolutionary when it is nothing of the sort. -Lea & Young saw that crime rates for Asian ethnic backgrounds were similar to or lower than crime rates from White ethnic backgrounds. If this Neo-Marxist sociologist was right, the police would only be racist towards Black people and not people from Asian ethnic backgrounds, which seems unlikely. |
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Neo-Marxism
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With regard to ethnicity, overall this sociological perspective: -Black crime is exaggerated to justify aggressive styles of policing and, in the 1970s, to reassert the power of the state, which was facing a crisis of hegemony. -Relative deprivation means young Black people have a sense of injustice, intensified by racism, at lacking things others in society have. -Marginality creates powerlessness and resentment. -Subcultures combined with marginality and relative deprivation provide support for crime as an alternative means of achieving mainstream goals that are otherwise blocked. -Poverty and social exclusion encourage the search for a powerful identity otherwise denied in a predominantly white culture. -Labelling, stereotyping and racism in the criminal justice system, e.g. racist canteen culture in police forces, stop and search and institutional racism. -Offers a form of political resistance against oppressive White society and culture.
Evaluations:
-The conflicts between minority ethnic groups, the police and criminal justice agencies and negative media stereotypes still exist, but the 'crisis of hegemony' of the 1970s does not, suggesting that the explanation is inadequate. -Lea & Young (1984) point out that most crimes are reported by the public, not uncovered by the police, so it is hard to explain Black crime in terms of police racism. |
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Marxism
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This sociological perspective believes people from minority ethnic backgrounds are much more likely to be from working-class backgrounds, who don't commit more crime than those from the ruling-class but are subjected to Selective Law Enforcement. Therefore, the ruling-class is much more likely to get away with the crimes they commit than the working-class.
Evaluations: -Tends to group crimes committed by ethnic minority groups into a larger group of working-class crime. -Doesn't suggest reasons or solutions as to why people from minority ethnic backgrounds are more likely to be from working-class backgrounds. |
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Evaluations
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This refers to the overall praises and criticisms of sociological perspectives on ethnicity and crime: -The links between ethnicity and offending are complex, and it is quite difficult to discover whether differences between ethnic groups are a result of their ethnicity, or because of differences in age, social class and the areas in which they live. -For example, compared to White people, minority ethnic groups tend to have higher proportions of young people, those suffering social and economic deprivation, and those living in deprived urban communities; higher crime rates may be related to these factors rather than ethnicity itself. -There is substantial evidence, confirmed in self-report studies, that the higher rate of offending by some minority ethnic groups shown in official statistics may be an exaggerated distortion created by racist stereotyping, unjustified assumptions and labelling by the police, and by racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. |
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Phillips & Bowling (2007, 2012)
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These sociologists note, in reference to powers given to the police under the Terrorism Act (2000), that members of minority ethnic communities are more likely to think they are 'over-policed and under-protected' and to have limited faith in the police.
They also point out that many police officers hold negative stereotypes about ethnic minority groups as criminals, leading to deliberate targeting for stop and search. Such stereotypes are endorsed and upheld by the 'canteen culture' of rank and file officers.
They suggest evidence of racial discrimination is shown in the following ways: -Indirect racial discrimination: 1. Mistrust of the police - this means minority ethnic suspects are less likely than White offenders to cooperate with police officers or prosecutors, and less likely to admit offences during interview or before trial. Refusing to admit to offences means they are ineligible for a caution or reduced sentences. 2. Social position - minority ethnic groups are more likely than White offenders to display the social characteristics which make a remand in custody more likely than release on bail, because they are thought to be more likely to abscond. This includes factors like poor housing and a lack of community. -Direct racial discrimination: 1. Stop and search - Black and Asian people, and especially youth, fit police stereotypes of 'troublemakers' and they are therefore targeted for heavier policing. They note that stop and search contributes to the unfair criminalisation of ethnic minority groups, and undermines public support for the police in their communities. The resentments created by over-policing and stop and search were one of the sparks behind the UK riots in British cities in 2011. 2. Institutional racism - the investigation into the policing handling of the murder of 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence by 5 White youths in 1993 led to the Macpherson Report in 1999. This was highly critical of the Metropolitan Police, pointing to a series of mistakes, professional incompetence, and a 'lack of urgency' and mishandling of the police investigation, including their assumption that Stephen Lawrence was involved in a street brawl rather than being the victim of an unprovoked racist attack. It pointed to the existence of institutional racism in the police force. The persistence of this racism in the Metropolitan Police led the Metropolitan Black Police Association, in 2008, to warn people from minority ethnic groups not to join the force, because of 'a hostile atmosphere where racism is allowed to spread'. 3. Arrests, charges and court proceedings - police officers appear to arrest and charge some Black and Asian suspects without sufficient evidence. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) are more likely to drop cases against ethnic minorities before they reach court, and those cases the CPS brings to court have a lower conviction rate than those involving White offenders. This suggests there wasn't enough evidence for the police to charge them in the first place, nor for the CPS to secure convictions as they were bringing such weak cases to court. 4. Discrimination in sentencing - Black people, compared to White offenders in the same position, face a greater likelihood of being given a prison sentence and of receiving longer sentences. 5. Over-representation in prison - the cumulative effects of social exclusion, and direct and indirect discrimination, are shown in the disproportionate rates of imprisonment for people from minority ethnic groups. They cite evidence showing that, in prison, Black and Asian prisoners face a more brutal regime than White prisoners, including abuse, violence and intimidation, denial of earned privileges and disproportionate disciplinary action. Prisoners from Asian ethnic backgrounds face stereotyping as 'Islamic terrorists' and 'security risks' in prison. |
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Interactionism
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This sociological perspective argues racism and racist stereotypes in police culture mean people from Black and Asian ethnic backgrounds are more likely to be labelled as criminal: -Crime statistics lack validity with decisions made in the Criminal Justice System having the potential to be based on labels and stereotypes. -Racist 'canteen culture' in the police. -The 1999 Macpherson Report, which investigated the handling of the Stephen Lawrence murder case, found the Metropolitan police to be institutionally racist, which has since been reiterated again in the 2023 Casey Report.
Official statistics back this perspective, as people from ethnic minority backgrounds are 9x more likely to be stopped and searched than those from non-ethnic minority backgrounds in the UK. However, these statistics may under-represent the actual figures, due to unreported cases, more likely to happen if operating in a system which is institutionally racist (as argued with the Metropolitan Police initially in the Macpherson Report).
Evaluations: -Right Realists would argue people from ethnic minority backgrounds would be more likely to commit deviant acts because of their likelihood of being in lone-parent families. -Neo-Marxists would say the reason for official statistics depicting people from ethnic minority groups committing more crime than those not from those groups is actually due to a police crackdown on ethnic minority communities because of a moral panic brought to popularity by the ruling-class. |
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Left Realism
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This sociological perspective argues that crime is a reality in urban deprived areas, which often involves young males from Black and other minority ethnic backgrounds due to marginalisation, subcultures and relative deprivation: -An example of this, they would argue, is that some ethnic groups (especially people from African-Caribbean and Pakistani backgrounds) underachieve in education, and have higher levels of unemployment and under-representation in positions of power (for example, 16% of the UK's population is from an ethnic minority background, but approximately 10% of MPs are from an ethnic minority background). -Street gangs (a form of subculture) are more likely to form in ethnic minority communities which often aim to use informal means of gaining wealth. At times, they see wealth in terms of relative deprivation, which has become more prominent in an increasingly media-saturated society, as shown by the 2011 London Riots.
They may find surveys such as the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and the Islington Crime Survey as useful evidence for their claims. |
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Hall et al. (1978)
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These Neo-Marxist sociologists stated that in the 1970s, Britain was facing an economic and political crisis which threatened the dominance of ruling-class ideology in society - a crisis of hegemony: -At the same time, there was a growing conflict between the police and the African-Caribbean community. This was fuelled by selective publication of crime statistics showing Black youth involvement in particular offences, including street robbery (theft with actual or threatened use of force, now commonly called 'mugging'). -The media picked up on this, as making good headlines, and promoted the idea that Black people were more prone to criminality than White people, and the media image of the 'black mugger' was born. -A moral panic developed - a media-fuelled exaggeration of the problem of Black crime - with growing demands by the public that something should be done to stamp out the problem. -The 'black mugger' came to be a folk devil and a scapegoat for all society's problems.
They argued: -There had not been a real increase in street robbery but the moral panic was used to justify more repressive and aggressive policing against the Black community, like repeated stop and search. -All Black youth were seen as a threat, even when they weren't doing anything wrong, and this generated growing distrust, and hostility and resistance to the police in the Black community, which in many ways continues today. -The media exaggerated extent of Black crime therefore became a means of reasserting the dominance of ruling-class ideas, and re-establishing their hegemony in society generally, as the public shared their concerns over Black criminality, and this diverted people's attention from the wider crisis in British society. -This also divided the working-class on racial grounds.
Evaluations: -Downes & Rock (2011) argue they are inconsistent in claiming Black street crime was not rising, but also that it was rising because of unemployment. -They do not show how the capitalist crisis led to a moral panic, nor do they provide evidence that the public were in fact panicking or blaming crime on Black people. -Left realists argue that inner-city residents' fears about mugging are not panicky, but realistic. |
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Louise F Fitzgerald (1993)
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In reference to stop and search, this sociologist found police discrimination against ethnic minorities was greatest in situations where police officers had scope to exploit their own intuition, stereotypes and racial prejudices, such as stopping and searching people.
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Right Realism
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This sociological perspective argues people from ethnic minority backgrounds commit more crime, according to official statistics, due to high levels of families from these backgrounds being lone-parent families (specifically with lone mothers), who inadequately socialise children due to a lack of discipline and male role models as a result of family breakdown. This instability within the family then leads to instability in wider society: -The 2021 Census found persons who identified as 'Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African: Caribbean' had the highest proportion of lone parents in England and Wales. -Bennett et al. (1996): in reference to Charles Murray's underclass often consisting of lone-parent families, which is argued to have sprouted due to welfare dependency, state that crime is the result of 'growing up surrounded by deviant, delinquent, and criminal adults in a practically perfect criminogenic environment - that is, (one) that seems almost consciously designed to produce vicious, predatory unrepentant street criminals'.'.
Evaluations: -It doesn't identify with other reasons for crime other than family structure. -It doesn't identify that minority ethnic groups also tend to be disadvantaged with educational achievement, employment etc. (which Left Realists would most identify with). -No reference is made to how social structures outside of the family influence the likelihood of committing crime. |
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Lea & Young (1993)
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These Left Realist sociologists accept that Black crime, for some offences, is higher than for the White population. They suggest three factors contribute to this: 1. Marginality - some minority ethnic groups are pushed to the edges of mainstream society by underachievement in education, lack of employment or low pay, and lack of legitimate opportunities to influence events. These create resentments and a sense of powerlessness, further fuelled by the experience of racism. 2. Relative deprivation - this is most likely to be felt by those facing more deprived social situations, as many of those in minority ethnic groups do. 3. Subculture - marginality and relative deprivation can combine in contributing to the formation of subcultures in deprived communities, which provide a form of peer-group support for young Black males and may involve gang culture, violence, and street crime as a response to the resentments and status frustration they feel. This also produces higher levels of utilitarian crime, such as theft and robbery, as a means of coping with relative deprivation.
They acknowledge that the police often act in racist ways and that this results in the unjustified criminalisation of some members of minority groups. However, they do not believe that discriminatory policing fully explains the differences in the statistics: -For example, they note that over 90% of crimes known to the police are reported by members of the public rather than discovered by the police themselves. -Under these circumstances, even if the police do act in discriminatory ways, it is unlikely that this can adequately account for the ethnic differences in the statistics.
Similarly, they argue that we can't explain the differences between minority ethnic groups in terms of police racism: -For example, Black people have a considerably higher rate of criminalisation than Asian people. -The police would have to be very selective in their racism - against Black people but not against Asian people - for it to be the cause of these differences.
Evaluations: -Role of police racism: for example, arrest rates for Asian people may be lower than for Black people not because they are less likely to offend, but because police stereotype the 2 groups differently, seeing Black people as dangerous, Asian people as passive. -Furthermore, these stereotypes may have changed since 9/11, because police now regard Asian people too as dangerous - thus explaining the rising criminalisation rates for this group. |
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Bowling & Phillips (2002)
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These sociologists suggest higher levels of robbery by Black people could be linked to poverty and social exclusion, which Black communities are more likely to suffer from, and such activities can generate both peer-group status and a sense of a powerful Black identity otherwise denied: -Poverty and social exclusion clearly affect Asian peoples as well, particularly Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, who are among the poorest groups in British society. -However, their lower crime rate may be because Asian cultures offer a much clearer cultural identity, and there are generally stronger controls within Asian families and communities, limiting the opportunities and perhaps the desire to commit crime.
In reference to stop and search, they suggest regular stop and searches by the police can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy, with higher levels of robbery among Black youth arising as a response to labelling, as they act in accordance with the stereotypes the police have of them. |
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