AQA A2 Sociology Crime and Deviance

(CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY) Historically, Black resistance to western attempts to control and exploit Black people.

Lea and Young say that 1st generation immigrants were law-abiding; it's unlikely they passed on a tradition of anti-colonial struggle. Most crime is intra-ethnic, not a struggle against racism. He wrongly romanticises street crime as revolutionary. Asian crime rates are similar to whites'. If he was right, then the police are only racist towards blacks and not Asians.

(CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY) The term used by Gilroy to suggest that ethnic-minority groups in Britain have developed a culture that resists the racist oppression of the majority society.

Racism that is built into the normal practices of an organisation.

Term used by Bourgois to describe the anger and hurt caused by economic and social marginalization.

Within a particular ethnic group.

In 1981 there were serious inner-city disturbances, particularly in Brixton in London, Lord Scarman led a government inquiry into the causes of these 'riots'.

Sir William Macpherson led an inquiry into the events surrounding the murder of Stephen Lawrence (allegedly) by White Racists, and the subsequent police investigation. -> Institutional racism was found.

A term used to describe street robbery. It has no status as a specific crime in England and Wales.

1. Black people are 7x more likely to be stopped and searched then whites. 2. Asians are over 3x more likely to be stopped and searched than other people under the Terrorism Act 2000. 3. Only a small proportion of stops result in arrest.

a) ethnic differences in offending b) police racism c) demographic factors (EM are over-represented in the groups most likely to be stopped regardless of their ethnicity e.g. the young, unemployed and urban dwellers).

(ETHNICITY AND CRIMINALISATION) Sometimes they ask respondents to identify the ethnicity of the person who committed the crime against them. E.g. In the case of 'mugging', black people are siginifcantly more likely to be identified as offenders.

(ETHNICITY AND CRIMINALISATION - SELF-REPORT STUDIES)They found that blacks and whites had almost identical rates of offending, while Asians had much lower rates. (Discredit the stereotype of blacks as being more likely then whites to offend).

(limitations) they rely on victims' memory. White victims tend to 'over-identify' blacks as offenders. They exclude the under 16s. They exclude crimes by businesses, so they tell us nothing about the ethnicity of corporate crimes.

They note that there have been many allegations of oppressive policing of minority communities, including mass stop and search operations, paramilitary tactics, expressive surveillance, armed raids, police violence and deaths in custody, and a failure to respond effectively to racist violence.

The arrest rate for black people is over 3x the rate for whites. By contrast, once arrested, blacks and Asians are less likely than white people to receive a caution. This may be due to the fact that minorities are more likely to deny the offence. Not admitting the offence means they cannot receive a caution and are more likely to be charged.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is more likely to drop cases against ethnic minorities than whites, and Black and Asian defendants are less likely to be found guilty than whites. This suggests that the evidence against minority ethnic defendants is often weaker and possibly based on police stereotyping.

When cases do go ahead, minorities are more likely to elect for a Crown Court trial by jury, rather then a magistrates' court, perhaps due to mistrust to magistrates' impartiality. However, Crown Courts can impose heavier sentences if convicted.

He 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.

1. Blacks are 5x more likely to be in prison then whites. Blacks and Asians are more likely to be serving longer sentences. 2. When awaiting trial, EM are less likely to be granted bail.

(LEFT REALISM) They see crime as the product of relative deprivation, subculture and marginalisation. -> Some unemployed black youths resort to utilitarian crime to cope with relative deprivation. Also, because they are marginalised their frustration may produce non-utilitarian crime, e.g. violence.

(LEFT REALISM) 1. Stats represent real differences in offending between ethnic groups (AO2) This is because nearly all the crimes known to the police (over 90%) are reported by the public. 2. These are caused by differences in levels of relative deprivation and marginalisation.

(POLICING THE CRISIS) In the 1970s Britain’s economy was experiencing problems: declining rate of profit, rising unemployment & falling wages. It became more difficult for the ruling class to rule by consent. So they turned to force. Mugging presented as a key element in the breakdown of law & order. Violence = a threat to the stability of society, and it was the black mugger who was to symbolise the threat of violence (scapegoat)

They are inconsistent: They claim black street crime was not rising, but also that it was rising because of unemployment. They don't show HOW the crisis led to a moral panic, or that the public were actually blaming crime on blacks.

He studied El Barrio, a black and Hispanic community in New York. He argues that discrimination has excluded these groups from legitimate opportunities. -> Exclusion from mainstream opportunities leads both to crime to earn a living and to a culture that draws individuals into crime through drug addiction. (use Cloward & Ohlin's criminal and retreatist subcultures to illustrate).