SOCIAL DIMENSIONS: RACE AND ETHNICITY

• INTERSECTIONALITY (CRENSHAW, 1989)

  • Originally used by Crenshaw (1989) as a means of exploring ‘the various ways in which race and gender interact to shape the multiple dimensions of Black women's employment’ (p.1244)
  • Used subsequently to explore links between gender, race, culture and crime (specifically violence against women)
  • ‘actual experience of domestic violence, [and] rape’ for ‘women of color at the intersection of race and gender […] [is]qualitatively different than that of white women’ (p.1245)
• WHAT 'INTERSECTIONS' ARE THERE?

  A) physical

  B) age

  C) sexual

  D) orientation

  E) gender

  F) race

  G) ethnicity

  
• THE CORE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 'RACE' AND 'ETHNICITY'

  RACE:

  • Classification of human according to physical characteristics/features
  • Based on real or perceived biological differences (e.g. in appearance – skin colour, hair texture, eye colour - intelligence, strength) between races.
  • Often used hierarchically.

  ETHNICITY

  • Classification of humans according to specific cultural features
  • Such as customs, language, religion, nationality, history or social view/values.
• RACISM

  ‘The doctrine that the world’s population is divisible into categories based upon physical differences which are transmitted genetically. Invariably this leads to a conception that the categories can be ordered hierarchically, so that some elements of the world’s population are superior to others’. (Cashmore and Troyna , 1990:46)
• DEFINING ETHNICITY

  • Tries to avoid the problematic ‘biological’ focus of ‘race’ by focusing on those groupings where an ‘internal sense’ and ‘external perception’ of ‘distinctiveness’ exists
  • E.g. ‘Defined by such features as: a common geographic origin; migratory status… language; religious faith; shared traditions; values & symbols)’ (Bowling & Phillips, 2002, p.24)
• DEFINING ETHNICITY

  An ‘ethnic group’ – or ethnos – are a collective of individuals ‘who share a distinct culture and are ‘bound together by ties of cultural homogeneity’ that results in a ‘common way of perceiving, thinking, feelings, and interacting with reality’’ 

  (Kleg, 1993, cit. in Bowling & Phillips, 2002, p.24)
• CRITIQUING 'ETHNICITY'

  BUT also has its problems as a mode of describing/ differentiating between ‘others’:

  • Has been critiqued simply as shorthand for ‘‘signalling that black people are the object of concern’’ (Smith, 1989, cit. in Bowling & Phillips, 2002).
  • Is there a risk it will – or even has -‘simply become a euphemism for race’? (Bowling & Phillips, 2002)
• FEAR OF CRIME & ETHNICITY

  • 2004/05 British Crime Survey (now CSEW/Crime Survey for England & Wales) shows that people from mixed ethnic groups face significantly higher risks of being a victim of crime than white people.
  • Also shows that BAME groups were significantly more likely than white people to be worried about burglary, car crime and violent crime.
• WHAT IS A HATE CRIME?

  • In UK – ‘any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic’.
  • In US – offences ‘against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation’.
• UK HOME OFFICE (2017) HATE CRIME STATS

  • 2016/17 - 80,393 offences recorded police in which one or more ‘hate crime’ strands deemed to be motivating factor.
  • Increase of 29% compared with 62,518 hate crimes recorded in 2015/16, the largest percentage increase seen since the series began in 2011/12.

  A) Race

  B) Sexual orientation

  C) Religious

  D) Disability

  E) Transgender

  
• USA FBI HATE CRIME STATS 2016

  • 6,121 criminal incidents & 7,321 related offenses motivated by bias
  • 6,063 single-bias incidents reported, involving 7,509 victims – majority related to race/ethnicity/ancestry
  • In addition, 58 multiple-bias hate crime incidents were reported, which involved 106 victims.

  A) Race/ ethnicity/ ancestry

  B) religious

  C) Sexual Orientation

  D) Gender Identity

  E) disability

  F) Gender

  
• UPWARD TREND IN HATE CRIMES

  United States

  • 91% increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes in first half of 2017, compared with the same period in 2016 (Council on American-Islamic Relations, 2017)
  • Hate crimes have ‘spiked’ since 2016, which was the ‘worst year’ for anti-Muslim incidents since CAIR began its documenting system in 2013.
• UPWARD TREND IN HATE CRIMES

  United Kingdom

  • 27% increase in race hate crime; 35% increase in religious hate crime 2015/16- 2016/17 (Home Office, 2017)
  • Increase over last year thought to reflect both ‘genuine rise in hate crime around the time of the EU referendum’ & ongoing improvements in crime recording.
  • Further increase in police recorded hate crime following the Westminster Bridge terrorist attack on 22 March 2017.
• STOP AND SEARCH (Lammy Review, 2017)

  • ‘Disproportionate use of Stop and Search drain[s] trust in the CJS in BAME communities’
  • Despite recent reforms to increase accountability and promote good practice, those from BAME groups = 3x as likely to be stopped and searched as those who are White. 
  • In particular, those who are Black were over six times more likely to be stopped
  • ‘Stop and Search is frequently used to disrupt gang crime, with arrests for drug offences particularly high […] the CJS must avoid equating gang membership with young people simply associating in groups’.
• EXPERIENCE OF CJS: STOP & SEARCH (DRUGS)

  A) Less

  B) black

  C) white

  D) drug use

  E) stop & search

  F) 1000

  G) 6 times

  
• War on Drugs as a war on black women? At the gender/race/ethnicity intersection

  • Represent a ‘disproportionate share’ of women sentenced to prison for drug offences (Mauer at al, 1999)
  • ‘Black women have suffered from the greatest increase in the percentage of inmates incarcerated for drug offenses’ (Bush-Baskette, 1999)
  • ‘Harsh drug laws […] driving a surge in the number of women imprisoned’ in Latin America (PRI, 2015)
• Racial & gender disparities in arrests (UK)

  • Black men were more than three times more likely to be arrested than White men
  • Black women and Black boys also ‘significantly more likely to be arrested’ than White women and boys
  • Mixed ethnic men and women ‘more than twice as likely’ to be arrested than White men and women. (Lammy Review, 2017)
• Committal to court, and sentencing

  • Racial disparities in committals to Crown Court: 44.5% Black; 33.7% Asian; 33.5% White (June 2011, Ministry of Justice)
  • Young BAME offenders more likely to receive community sentence less likely to be  discharged  or given a referral order. (Criminal Justice System Race Unit, 2006)
• At the BAME/gender/age/faith intersection (Young Review, 2014)

  • Young, black and/or Muslim men = over-represented at all stages of the CJS experience: More likely to be stopped and searched, More likely to plead not guilty and more likely to be tried.
  • BAME representation in the prison population is heavily influenced by age; there are proportionately many more young BAME male prisoners than older ones.
  • 'These disparities throughout the CJS are often part of a complex mix of educational, employment, health and social inequalities that have characterised many of their lives’.
• At the age/ethnicity intersection

  • Gypsies, Roma and Travellers (GRT) - often missing from published statistics about children in the CJS - are ‘substantially over-represented in youth custody’, for example, making up 12% of children in Secure Training Centres. (Lammy Review, 2017)
• At the race/ethnicity/religion intersection (Young Review, 2014)

  • Both black and Muslim people are significantly over represented in the prison population, with this disproportionality rising significantly for Muslims since 2002
  • In 2002, 5,502 prisoners in England and Wales said they were Muslim.
  • By December 2014, this figure had reached 12,225…
  • While overall prison population has also increased (by 20%) in that period, there has been a disproportionate rise of 22% in prisoners identifying as Muslim.
  • By 2017, it was 13,200 (Lammy Review, 2017)
• The Young Review (2014)

  • Many prisoners have ‘experienced differential treatment as a result of their race, ethnicity or faith’. 
  • 'Black prisoners felt that they were stereotyped as drug dealers and Muslim prisoners as terrorists’.
  • ‘Troubling’ concerns that the CJS’ approach to ‘young black men of African Caribbean descent’ is frequently ‘based on the supposition that they belong to a gang, and that young Muslim men are, or soon will be, engaged in terrorist activity’.
• LAMMY REVIEW (2007)

  • Re increases in Muslim men in UK prisons
  • “We know far too little about what has been driving this trend. Are charging decisions, or trial outcomes affecting the numbers ending up in prison? Are large proportions of prisoners converting to Islam once they are in custody? We simply do not know. This gap needs to be taken seriously.”
  • Nb. the relatively small number of terror convictions could not account for the increase and the number of prisoners who actually converted was also low.
• WHAT IS INSTITUTIONAL RACISM

  ‘The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour,  culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people’. (MacPherson Report, 1999)
• IMPACT OF MACPHERSON REPORT

  • Forced changes in ways racist offences/hate crimes were recorded
  • All police forces adopted the definition of a racist incident recommended by the Lawrence Inquiry Report  as “any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person”
  • Highlighted broader issues of absence of trust in policing among BAME communities in England and Wales
• Inherent racialised power structures? A critical race theory perspective

  • Places  ‘race’ at the centre  of its analysis
  • Argues that racial  inequality is embedded in the power structures and processes
  • Formal  equality merely serves to mask racial inequality in the CJS and elsewhere
  • Since colonialism and slavery, negative stereotypes have persisted
  • Racism changes form  and permeates social, cultural, political and economic life
  • Racial disparities have worsened in terms of arrests, prosecution, sentencing, incarceration.