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Explaining the Differences in Ethnicity and Crime

There are some ethnic groups who are over-represented in prisons which supports the argument that there is a link between ethnicity and crime. Reasons for this include:

Official statistics

Official statistics

  • Official statistics:
    • Statistics can be inaccurate because of the dark figure of crime where crimes can be under reported or under recorded depending on their nature.
Institutional racism

Institutional racism

  • Institutional racism:
    • This refers to racial discrimination within institutions that is considered normal behaviour.
  • An example of institutional racism:
    • Sir William McPherson's report, ‘The Macpherson report’ into the police investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
    • In this report, he showed that police often label people of minority ethnic backgrounds.
Police stereotyping

Police stereotyping

  • Police stereotyping:
    • There are racial stereotypes perpetuated within the police force and by the media might promote these stereotypes and be biased against people of specific ethnic backgrounds.
    • Police might be labelling black and Asian people as criminals more.
    • This is evident by the disproportionate amount of stop and searches taking place against black people.
Media stereotyping

Media stereotyping

  • Media stereotyping:
    • The media can focus on specific people or groups and make them look like a threat to society.
    • This obviously deteriorates the relationship between police and members of those ethnic groups and as a result might lead to criminal activity.
Jump to other topics
1

The Sociological Approach

2

Families

3

Education

4

Crime & Deviance

5

Social Stratification

6

Sociological Research Methods

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