- Official statistics on the criminal justice process show differences between ethnic groups, there are two explanations, left realism and Neo-Marxism
Left realism
- Lea and Young argue that ethnic differences in the statistics reflect real differences In the levels of offending.
- They see crime as the product of relative deprivation, subculture and marginalisation.
- Racism had led to the marginalisation and economic exclusion of ethnic minorities.
- Media emphasis on consumerism also promotes relative deprivation by setting materialistic goals that many members of minority groups cannot reach by legitimate means because of the discrimination.
- Lea and Young recognise that racist policing often leads to the unjustified criminalisation of some members of minority groups.
- However, even if the police do act in racist ways, Lea and Young argue that this is unlikely to account for the ethnic differences in the statistics.
- Similarly, police racism cannot explain the much higher conviction rates of black than of Asians: they would have to be selectively racist against black but not Asians to cause these differences.
- Lea and Young thus conclude that:
- That statistics represent real differences in offending between ethnic groups and,
- These are caused by differences in levels of relative deprivation and marginalisation.
Neo-Marxism: black crime as a construct.
- Neo-Marxists such as Gilroy and Hall et al reject the view that the statistics reflect reality. Rather, they are the outcome of a social construction process that stereotypes minorities as more criminal than whites
Gilroy: the myth of black criminality
- Gilroy argues that the idea of black criminality is a myth created by racist stereotype of African Caribbean’s and the Asians
- In reality, these groups are no more criminal than any other ethnic group.
- But because the CJS act on racist stereotypes, minorities are criminalised and therefore appear in greater numbers in the official crime statistics.
- Crime as a political resistance, Gilroy argues that ethnic minority crime is a form of a political resistance against a racist society, and this resistance has its roots in earlier struggles against British imperialism.
- Most blacks and Asians in the UK originated in former British colonies, where their anti-colonial struggles taught them how to resist oppression, e.g. through riots and demonstrations.
- When they found themselves facing racism in Britain, they adopted the same forms of struggle to defend themselves, but their political struggle was criminalised by the British state.
- Gilroy’s view is like that of critical criminology, which argues that much working-class crime is an act of resistance to capitalism.
Hall et al: policing the crisis
- Hall et al argue that the 1970s saw a moral panic over black muggers that served the interests of capitalism
- Hall et al argue that he ruling class are normally able to rule society through consent.
- But in times of crises, this becomes more difficult. In the early 70s. British capitalism faced a crisis, high inflation, unemployment and widespread strikes.
- The 70s also saw a media-driven moral panic about the supposed growth of a ‘new’ crime – mugging – apparently committed by black youth. In reality, according to Hall et al, there was no evidence of a significantly increase in this crime.
- The emergence of the moral panic about mugging as a ‘black’ crime at the same time as the crisis of capitalism was no coincidence. The myth of the young black mugger served as a scapegoat to distract attention from the true cause of society’s problems such as unemployment – namely the capitalist crisis.
- By presenting black youth as a threat to the fabric of society, the moral panic served to divide the working class on racial grounds and weaken opposition to capitalism, as well as winning popular consent for authoritarian forms of rule that could be used to supress opposition.
- However, Hall et al do not argue that black crime was only a product of media labelled. The crisis of capitalism was increase marginalising black youth through unemployment, and this drove some into petty crime to survive.
More recent explanations
Sociologists have examined two other explanations for ethnic differences in crime rates.
- Neighbourhood factors Fitzgerald et al found street robberies were highest in very poor areas but where the people had contact with richer groups. Young blacks were more likely to live in these areas and to be poor, but poor whites in these areas were also more likely to commit street crime. Thus, ethnicity wasn’t the cause.
- Getting caught Sharp and Budd found black offenders were more likely than whites to have been arrested. This was because they committed crimes where victims could identify them (e.g. robbery) and had been excluded from school or associated with known criminals – factors that raised their visibility to police.