Ethnicity And Crime

• Statistics

  •Black people make up just 3% of the population but 13% of the prison population.•Asian people make up 7% of the population and approx. 7% of the prison population.•White people made up 72% of the prison population compared with 87% of the general population.
• •‘Members of our black communities are seven times more likely than their white counterparts to be stopped and searched, three and a half times more likely to be arrested and five times more likely to be in prison’

  •Asian people were: twice as likely to be stopped and searched (mainly for drugs); more likely to be charged and face court proceedings than to receive a caution; more likely to receive a custodial sentence if found guilty; more likely to be arrested for fraud and forgery.
• Reasons For Criminality

  The 2 approaches:

  1)Black people are more likely to be criminalised than other groups due to discrimination/labels (labelling, Neo-Marxism)●2)Though partially due to police bias, the crime statistics also reflect a reality of higher rates of offending among black people due to social issues (left realism).
• Alternative Sources Of Statistics

  Victim studies

  •These ask individuals to say what crimes they have been victims of in the last 12 months (and can be used to identify ethnicity of offenders).Black people are overrepresented among those identified as muggers by victims
• Alternative Source Of Statistics

  •Self report studies (SRS) ask individuals to anonymously report their own deviant or criminal behaviour.•A SRS by Graham and Bowling found black and white people had similar rates of offending (43 and 44%) whilst Asian people had much lower rates.•Several studies find that white and mixed ethnic groups are the most likely to admit to committing an offence (e.g. drug use).