Ethnicity, crime and justice

Ethnicity and criminalisation

There are three main sources of statistics on ethnicity and criminalisation:

Official statistics

These show the ethnic differences in the likelihood of being involved in the criminal justice system.
- g. black people are seven times more likely than whites to be stopped and searches and five time more likely to be in prison.
However, victim surveys and self-report studies throw more light on ethnicity and offending.

Victim Surveys

These ask individuals to say what crimes they have been a victim of:
- Sometimes they ask the ethnicity of the person who committed the crime against them e.g. in the case of mugging, black people are significantly more likely to be identified as offenders.

Self-report studies

These ask individuals to disclose crimes they have committed.
- Graham and Bowling found that black and whites had almost identical rates of offending, while Asian had much lower rates.
- Other self-report studies show similar patterns, discrediting the stereotype of blacks as being more likely than whites to offend.
Overall, the evidence on ethnicity and offending is inconsistent. Official statistics and victim surveys indicate higher rates of offending by backs, but self-report studies do not.

Racism and the criminal justice system

There are ethnic differences at each stage of the criminal justice process. How far are they the result of racism in the CJS, we need to look at the main stages of the process that an individual may go through.

Policing

Phillips and Bowling not that there have been allegations of oppressive policing of minority communities, including:
- Mass stop and search operations, paramilitary tactics, excessive surveillance, armed raids, police violence and deaths in custody and a failure to respond effectively to racist violence.
- They note that minorities are more likely to think they are ‘overpoliced and under protected’

Stop and Search

Black people are 7 times more likely to be stopped and searched than whites.
Asians are over three times more likely to be stopped and searched than other people under the terrorism act 2000
Only a small proportion of stops result in arrest.

These patterns may be explained by:

Ethnic differences in offending, the patterns may simply reflect the fact that different ethnicities are more likely to commit crime, and police are acting on relevant information about a specific offence.
Police racism, alternatively, members of minority ethnic groups may be stopped more because of police racism. In high discretion stops, police act without specific information and are more likely to discriminate.
Demographic factors, ethnic minorities are over-represented in the groups most likely to be stopped regardless of their ethnicities, e.g. the young, unemployed and urban dwellers, so they get stopped more.

Arrests and cautions

The arrest rate for black people is over three times the rate for whites, By contrast, once arrested, blacks and Asians are less likely than white people to receive a caution.

Prosecution and trial

The crown prosecution service (CPS) decided whether a case brought by the police should be prosecuted.
- The CPS is more likely to drop cases against minorities than against whites, and black and Asian defendants are less likely to be found guilty than whites.
- When cases do go ahead, minorities are more likely to elect for a Crown Court trial by jury, rather than a magistrates’ court, perhaps due to mistrust of magistrates’ impartiality. However, Crown Courts can impose heavier sentences if convicted.

Sentencing and prison

Jail sentences are given to a greater proportion of black offenders of black offenders than white and Asians.
- Hood found that even when the seriousness of the offence and previous convictions are taken into account, black men were 5% more likely to be jailed.
- Blacks are five times more likely to be in prison than whites, blacks and Asians are more likely to be serving longer services.
- When awaiting trial, ethnic minorities are less likely to be granted bail.