6) Ethnicity, crime and Justice

• Stats:

  • black people make up 3% of the population, but is 13.1% of the prison population,
  • Asians 6.5% of population, 7.7% of the prison population.
  • A03: stats do not tell us whether numbers of one ethnic group are more likely members than other groups to commit an offence.
• self-report studies - Graham and Bowling:

  • Blacks (43%)
  • Whites (44%)
  • Indians (30%)
  • Pakistanis (28%)
  • Bangladeshi (13%)
• self-report studies - Sharpe and Budd:

  • 2002 offending's, crime and justice survey of 12,000 people found that whites and those of 'mixed' ethnic origins were most likely to have said they had committed a crime (40%), Blacks (28%) and Asians (21%)
• Policing - Phillips and Bowling:

  • 'mass stop and search operations, parliamentary tactics, excessive surveillance, armed raids, police violence and deaths in custody, and a failure to respond effectively to racist violence'
• Stop and search - Phillips and Bowling:

  • 'over-policed and under-protected'
• Prosecution and Trial - Phillips and Bowling:

  • CPS more likely to drop cases against minorities because evidence is weaker and based on stereotypes
• Pre-sentence reports - Hudson and Bramhall:

  • PSR allow for unwitting discrimination - Asians seen as less 'remorseful'
• Left realism:

  • stats represent real differences in rates of offending
• neo-marxism:

  • stats are a social construct resulting from racist labelling and discrimination in the CJS