Ethnicity & Crime
Sociology: AQA GCSE, topic 4.3.4
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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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.