Phillips, C. and Bowling, B. (2017) ‘Ethnicities, racism, crime, and criminal justice’ in
Liebling, A., Maruna, S. and McAra, L. (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (6th ed.).
Oxford: OUP.
Cesare Lombroso – physical and psychological traits of racial types
Lombroso (1897) recognized that black people in the US faced discrimination in the justice
system but thought that the high homicide rates was due to their primitivism, brutalism,
shiftlessness and indifference to the lives of others.
Historical and contemporary contexts
Mapping the conceptual terrain
- For philosophers and physical scientists such as Hume, Kant, de Gobineau, Linne and
Blumenbach, reason and civilization were synonymous with the white or Caucasion
race, while other racial groups especially the ‘Negro’ were regarded as naturally
inferior in terms of their moral, intellectual and behavioural capacities
- Gilroy (2000) – ‘Raciology’ – legitimized practices of slavery and indentured labour
and became embedded in British Colonial policies.
- Fenton (2003) – Ethnicity – refers to self-defined collectivities of people of common
origin with a shared culture linked to language, religion, nationality and ancestral
traditions.
- Analysis of ethnicity allows us to understand variation according to local socio-
cultural practices
Early migrant settlement, socio-economic inequalities, and the social construction of ethnic
criminalities
- Britain was home to 8 million people from minority ethnic backgrounds.
- 3% black; 8% Asian; 2% mixed race; 1% of other ethnic origins
- Further 3 million of other white backgrounds – 5% of the population, Irish, Travellers,
Gypsies
- 80% of population identified as White British
- Migrant settlement into urban areas during the 1950’s/60’s and 70’s – shaped by
availability of jobs and homes
- Minority ethnic groups were and still are concentrated in London, the South East, the
Midlands and the North West of England
- Formal and informal discrimination ‘The Colour Bar’ – exclusion from jobs/homes
(Daniel 1968)
- Today, poor levels of GCSE attainment in 2013/2014 is most striking for the lowest
cluster of Irish Travellers, Gypsy and Roma pupils followed by the next cluster of Black
Caribbean, Pakistani and white pupils from disadvantaged areas.
- High unemployment and low pay are particularly marked for Black men, Pakistani,
Bangladeshi and Black African women and the economic returns from education are
still not being fully realized even among the more successful Indian and Chinese
communities. Racial discrimination playing a significant part in this disadvantage.
- Media reports – ‘Black Crime Shock’ 1980’s mugging and robbing– promoted public
imagination of black people as innately violent, drug-abusing and disorderly.
, - Contrarily – Asian communities portrayed as conformist, passive, inward-looking and
self-regulating, more recently – ‘the Asian gang’ – homegrown Islamist terrorism
reinforcing the shift in perceptions of people of Asian origin from saint to sinner, also
Pakistani men collectively involved in racialized sexual violence against vulnerable
white young women
- Salutary reminder that the ‘whiteness’ of white collar crime, football violence and
alcohol fueled disorder has not produced the same essentialized notions of a white
criminality in either public or political consciousness.
Victimization and fear of crime
- Crime Survey England and Wales – the risk of being a victim of a personal crime in
2015 was highest for those describing themselves as mixed race (11%), compared
with black (6%), white (4%) or Asian (5%)
- Victimization rates for burglary and vehicle theft, as well as anxieties about crime,
was highest among minority ethnic respondents.
- People of mixed race have experienced more household crime (Clancy et al 2001)
- Factors such as age, low income, unemployment, urban residence and a lack of
academic qualifications were more important than ethnic origin.
Racist, anti-semetic, and anti-immigrant victimization
- People from minority ethnics groups are the targets for racist violence and other
forms of hate crime.
- 46,000 notifiable hate crimes in 2014-15, of which 93% were racially motivated, and
7% religiously motivated
- Year-on-year increase
- 4% increase between 2010/11 and 2014/15
- Awan and Zempi (2015) – using information from the self-report service -TellMAMA
which measures anti-muslim attacks, victims were most likely to be ‘visible muslims’
wearing religious clothing such as the hijab, and could include white converts to
Islam. More than 20% reported repeated incidents – indicates racist victimization –
feelings of vulnerability, fear, insecurity, and frustration
- Anti-semetic incidents – 1,179 in 2014, 924 in 2015 – but an recently reported
increase in anti-semetic comments on social media
- Anti-immigrant sentiments have been blamed for migrant victimization
- Absence of centrally recorded data on this coupled with low reporting rates –
threatened by state scrutiny into their lives, makes this an area where little reliable
data is available.
Street Crime: Criminological Statistics and Research
Official statistics
- Arrest, prosecution, conviction and sentencing data – only accounts of decisions
taken by criminal justice officials rather than evidence of offending per se.
- Biases in the administration of criminal justice will therefore create a skewed picture.
- Around 80% of the people arrested by the police for criminal offences are recorded
as being of white ethnicity.
- Higher arrest rates for those of Black and mixed ethnic origins.
Liebling, A., Maruna, S. and McAra, L. (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (6th ed.).
Oxford: OUP.
Cesare Lombroso – physical and psychological traits of racial types
Lombroso (1897) recognized that black people in the US faced discrimination in the justice
system but thought that the high homicide rates was due to their primitivism, brutalism,
shiftlessness and indifference to the lives of others.
Historical and contemporary contexts
Mapping the conceptual terrain
- For philosophers and physical scientists such as Hume, Kant, de Gobineau, Linne and
Blumenbach, reason and civilization were synonymous with the white or Caucasion
race, while other racial groups especially the ‘Negro’ were regarded as naturally
inferior in terms of their moral, intellectual and behavioural capacities
- Gilroy (2000) – ‘Raciology’ – legitimized practices of slavery and indentured labour
and became embedded in British Colonial policies.
- Fenton (2003) – Ethnicity – refers to self-defined collectivities of people of common
origin with a shared culture linked to language, religion, nationality and ancestral
traditions.
- Analysis of ethnicity allows us to understand variation according to local socio-
cultural practices
Early migrant settlement, socio-economic inequalities, and the social construction of ethnic
criminalities
- Britain was home to 8 million people from minority ethnic backgrounds.
- 3% black; 8% Asian; 2% mixed race; 1% of other ethnic origins
- Further 3 million of other white backgrounds – 5% of the population, Irish, Travellers,
Gypsies
- 80% of population identified as White British
- Migrant settlement into urban areas during the 1950’s/60’s and 70’s – shaped by
availability of jobs and homes
- Minority ethnic groups were and still are concentrated in London, the South East, the
Midlands and the North West of England
- Formal and informal discrimination ‘The Colour Bar’ – exclusion from jobs/homes
(Daniel 1968)
- Today, poor levels of GCSE attainment in 2013/2014 is most striking for the lowest
cluster of Irish Travellers, Gypsy and Roma pupils followed by the next cluster of Black
Caribbean, Pakistani and white pupils from disadvantaged areas.
- High unemployment and low pay are particularly marked for Black men, Pakistani,
Bangladeshi and Black African women and the economic returns from education are
still not being fully realized even among the more successful Indian and Chinese
communities. Racial discrimination playing a significant part in this disadvantage.
- Media reports – ‘Black Crime Shock’ 1980’s mugging and robbing– promoted public
imagination of black people as innately violent, drug-abusing and disorderly.
, - Contrarily – Asian communities portrayed as conformist, passive, inward-looking and
self-regulating, more recently – ‘the Asian gang’ – homegrown Islamist terrorism
reinforcing the shift in perceptions of people of Asian origin from saint to sinner, also
Pakistani men collectively involved in racialized sexual violence against vulnerable
white young women
- Salutary reminder that the ‘whiteness’ of white collar crime, football violence and
alcohol fueled disorder has not produced the same essentialized notions of a white
criminality in either public or political consciousness.
Victimization and fear of crime
- Crime Survey England and Wales – the risk of being a victim of a personal crime in
2015 was highest for those describing themselves as mixed race (11%), compared
with black (6%), white (4%) or Asian (5%)
- Victimization rates for burglary and vehicle theft, as well as anxieties about crime,
was highest among minority ethnic respondents.
- People of mixed race have experienced more household crime (Clancy et al 2001)
- Factors such as age, low income, unemployment, urban residence and a lack of
academic qualifications were more important than ethnic origin.
Racist, anti-semetic, and anti-immigrant victimization
- People from minority ethnics groups are the targets for racist violence and other
forms of hate crime.
- 46,000 notifiable hate crimes in 2014-15, of which 93% were racially motivated, and
7% religiously motivated
- Year-on-year increase
- 4% increase between 2010/11 and 2014/15
- Awan and Zempi (2015) – using information from the self-report service -TellMAMA
which measures anti-muslim attacks, victims were most likely to be ‘visible muslims’
wearing religious clothing such as the hijab, and could include white converts to
Islam. More than 20% reported repeated incidents – indicates racist victimization –
feelings of vulnerability, fear, insecurity, and frustration
- Anti-semetic incidents – 1,179 in 2014, 924 in 2015 – but an recently reported
increase in anti-semetic comments on social media
- Anti-immigrant sentiments have been blamed for migrant victimization
- Absence of centrally recorded data on this coupled with low reporting rates –
threatened by state scrutiny into their lives, makes this an area where little reliable
data is available.
Street Crime: Criminological Statistics and Research
Official statistics
- Arrest, prosecution, conviction and sentencing data – only accounts of decisions
taken by criminal justice officials rather than evidence of offending per se.
- Biases in the administration of criminal justice will therefore create a skewed picture.
- Around 80% of the people arrested by the police for criminal offences are recorded
as being of white ethnicity.
- Higher arrest rates for those of Black and mixed ethnic origins.
