Overall

• What are the 3 main sources of statistics?

  • Official statistics
  • Victim surveys
  • Self report studies
• What kind of data is official statistics?


  Positivists and quantative data
• What kind of data is Victim Surveys?



  Interpretivists and qualitative data
• What kind of data is Self report studies?



  Interpretivists and qualitative
• What do official statistics show?


  They show ethnic differences in the likelihood of being involved in the criminal justice system
• What are 2 examples of official statistics?

  1. Black people are 7x more likely than white people to be stopped and searched
  2. Black people are 5x more likely to be in prison
• What is the analysis for official statistics?


  It means that either ethnic minorities are likely to commit an offense or to be suspected of committing an offence. The statistics also show that young black men are over-represented
• What do victim surveys show?


  They ask the victims to say what crimes they have been a victim of. Sometimes the will ask about the ethnicity of the person who committed the crime against them
• What is an example of victim surveys?


  Black people are more likely to be identified as the offender of muggings
• What are 3 evaluation points on victim surveys?

  They rely on the victims memory - white victims tend to over identify Black as offenders.

  They exclude under 16s

  They exclude white collar and cooperate crime so we learn nothing about the ethncity of the offenders
• What are meant by self report studies?

  They ask individuals to disclose crimes they have committed
• What did Graham and Bowling suggest about self report studies?

  They found that Blacks and Whites had almost identical rates of offending, white Asians had much lower rates making official stats questionable
• What happens within the criminal justice system?

  There are ethnic differences at every stage which some sociologists suggest that this is a result of racism within the CJS
• What do Philips and Bowling suggest about Policing?

  They suggest that there have been many allegations of oppressive policing of ethnic communities
• What are some examples of Policing?

  • Mass stop and search operations
  • Paramilitary tactics
  • Excessive surveillance
  • Armed raids
  • Police violence
  • Deaths in custody
  • Failure to respond effectively to racist violence
• What are minorities more likely to think within Policing?

  That they are ‘over policed’ and under protected
• What are some statistics of stop and search?

  • Black people are 7x more likely to be stopped and searched than white people
  • Asian people are 3x more likely to be stopped and searched under the terrorism act 2000
• How many searches results in an arrest?

  Only a small proportion
• How does police racism effect stop and search?

  In high discretion stops, police act without specific information and are more likely to discriminate
• How does Demographic factors effect stop and search/

  Ethnic minorities are over represented in the group so they are more likely to be stopped regardless of their

  ethnicity; e.g. young, unemployed, urban

  dwellers get stopped more.
• What did the Macpherson report 1999 find?

  Evidence of institutional racism in the Metropolitan police force
• How do arrests and cautions differ for ethnic minorities?

  the arrest rate for blacks is 3x higher than it is for whites . However once arrested blacks and Asians are less likely to receive a caution
• Why are ethnic minorities less likely to receive a caution?

  Because they are more likely not to admit to the offence so they will be charged
• Who decides whether a case bought by the police should be prosecuted?

  The crown prosecution service (CPS)
• Who is the CPS going to drop cases for?

  More likely to drop cases against minorities than against white, and Blacks and Asian defendants are less likely to be found guilty than whites.
• Who are ethnic minorities more likely to chose when cases go ahead?

  They are more likely to elect for Crown Court trial by jury , rather than a magistrates court. This may be due to a mistrust of magistrates impartiality
• Which court imposes harsher sentences?

  Crown Courts
• What did Hood find about sentencing and prison?

  He found that black men were 5x more likely to be jailed, even taking into account previous convictions and the seriousness of the offence.
• What are some statistics of sentencing and prison?

  • Blacks are 5x more likely to be sent to jail than whites
  • Blacks and Asians are likely to serve longer prison sentences
  • Ethnic minorities are less likely to be granted bail
• Who was the theorist for neighbourhood factors?

  Fitzgerald et al
• What did Fitzgerald et al say about neighbourhood factors ?

  That street rombières are highest in poor areas where the people have contact with richer groups. Young blacks were more likely to live in these areas and to be poor, but poor whites in these areas were also more likely to commit street crime. Therefore, ethnicity was not found to be the cause.
• Who was the theories for explaining getting caught for recent explanations for ethnic differences in crime rates?

  sharp and Budd
• What did Sharp and Budd suggest about getting caught?

  That black offenders are more likely than whites to have been arrested. This was because they committed crimes where victims could dentist them e.g street robbery, and have been excluded from school or associated with known criminals - factors which raise their visibility to police