Ethnicity

• Criminalisation - victim surveys

  • Black people are significantly over represented among those identified by victims as offenders
  • Shows that a great deal of crime is intra-ethnic, meaning within ethnic groups rather than against them
  • Counter - only covers personal crimes and excludes crimes against corporations
• Criminalisation - self report studies

  • Graham and Bowling - white and black offending was similar (44% and 43%) while Indian (30%), Pakistani (28%) and Bangladeshi (13%) were much lower
  • Challenges the stereotype of crime being a black phenomenon, but they also support the stereotype that Asians commit the least
  • Counter - inconsistent data as victim surveys point to black people committing higher
• Criminalisation - stop and search


  • Minorities more likely to be stopped, in 2020 black people were 9x more likely to be stopped and Asians twice as likely
  • Terrorism Act 2000 - police can stop and search people whether or not they have reasonable suspicion
  • Bowling - leads to minorities feeling like they are over-policed but under-protected
• Criminalisation - explaining stop and search patterns

  • Police racism - Philips and Bowling found many officers hold negative stereotypes which leads to deliberate targeting
  • Ethnic differences in offending - in low discretion stops police rely on victim's description and in high discretion stops they rely on stereotypes
  • Demographic factors - police look out for young, unemployed manual workers, it just happens to be that these groups are largely ethnic
• Criminalisation - arrests and cautions

  • 2018/19 - the arrest rate for black people was over 3x the rate for white people
  • Black and Asian arrestees were less likely than white arrestees to receive a caution
  • Due to minorities denying the offence and exercising their right to legal advice because they already don't trust the justice system
  • Not admitting the offence means they won't get a warning and will instead be charged
• Criminalisation - prosecution and trial

  • The Crown Prosecution Service is responsible for deciding if a case should be brought to court
  • Bowling and Philips - CPS likely drops minority cases due to weaker evidence used by police when making the arrests
• Criminalisation - convictions and sentencing

  • Black and Asian defendants are less likely to be found guilty
  • Suggests discrimination as the court usually has weaker evidence but still convicts them
  • Black offenders have imprisonment rates 1% higher and Asians 3.4% higher than whites
• Criminalisation - presentence reports

  • PRSs are risk assessments for the magistrates when deciding on a decision
  • Hudson and Bramhall - reports on Asian offenders were less comprehensive and less remorseful than white ones
  • Blame this on demonising Muslims after 9/11
• Criminalisation - prison

  • UK 2021 - black people 4x more likely to be in prison than white people
  • Black and Asian offenders more likely to be serving longer services than white people
  • USA - 2/5 prisoners in local jails are black, 1/5 is Hispanic
• Explaining differences - Left realism (Lea and Young)


  • The statistics represent real differences in rates of offending
  • 90% of crimes known to the police are reported by the public, making them not responsible for ethnic differences in the statistics
  • Black people are criminalised more than Asians, so it cannot be the fault of racism
  • Counter - Difference between Blacks and Asians may be because police see black people as dangerous but see Asians as passive, since 9/11 police have arrested more Asians too
• Explaining differences - Neo-Marxism and the myth of black criminality (Gilroy)


  • Black criminality is a stereotype created by African Caribbean and Asian people, police act on the stereotypes and therefore ethnic groups appear in statistics more
  • In reality, they are no more criminal than any other group
  • Ethnic crime is an act of political resistance against intuitional racism
  • Counter - Lea and Young say most crime is intra-ethnic so it cannot be an act against white colonial rule
• Explaining differences - Neo-Marxism and policing the crisis (Hall)


  • Ruling class use minorities to police their problems
  • 1970s Britain was facing inflation, unemployment and strikes,
  • The elite used the media to push the idea of 'black muggers' as a scapegoat for the economic crisis
  • Counter - Do not show how the capitalist crisis led to a moral panic and they don't provide evidence that the public were panicking about black muggers