introducing gender, ethnicity and crime

8/3/2019 Introducing Gender, Ethnicity and Crime

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Introducing Gender, Ethnicity and

Crime


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Session Contents

-An Introduction to the module

- Ethnicity- Clarifying the concepts of race and ethnicity

- A brief history of race and racism

- Gender

- Clarifying the concepts of sex and gender

- Exploring hegemonic masculinity and patriarchy


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Session Aims

1) To trace the development of racism in the West.

2) To understand the concepts of race and ethnicity

3) To understand the concepts of sex and gender


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An Introduction to the Module

Learning Outcomes

1) Critically analyse the contribution of different theories on gender, race and ethnicity

towards a criminological understanding of victimisation, offending and criminal justice.

2) Critically examine research evidence documenting different patterns of victimisation andoffending according to race, class and gender.

3) Critically analyse the role that different factors such as ethnicity, age, gender and class

might play in the processes of criminalisation and vicitmisation.

Assessment for this module will be in the form of an exam

[LO 1] (50%) and an essay [LO 2 & 3] (50%).


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Race and Ethnicity


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Clarifying the concepts of race and ethnicity

Race

Race is fundamentally a biological concept and is often thought of as a signifier

of genetic difference. (Kleg, 1993)

Ethnicity

The term is intended to describe differences in groups without resorting to

racist notions of superiority and inferiority. (Kleg, 1993)

What is the difference between race and ethnicity?

Read the passage and define the terms.


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A Brief History of Race and Racism

- The idea of race and racism originated in the philosophies of theEnlightenment.

- The Enlightenment was built on the assumption that reason

could only be properly mature in Europe.

- Anyone outside of Europe, who were considered to be of non-

European racial and cultural origins, were thought of as inferior with

less rational, moral and evolutionary potential.

(Eze, 1997, quoted in Bowling and Phillips, 2002)


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- These ideas of white racial superiority rose in popularity in line with the

increasing prevalence of the slave trade (mid 1700s).

- The consumption of sugar increased 20-fold

between 1663 and 1775, the demand for which

could not be met without the use of slave labour

on West Indian Plantations (Fryer, 1984: 14).

- At the end of slavery in 1833, thinking about

race shifted from a justification for slavery to a

central ingredient in British imperial theory.


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- Afterwards, ideas about racial difference and hierarchy justified the

extermination of the inferior peoples that the Europeans encountered during

the period of colonial expansion.

- Drawing on these ideas of superiority over the lesser breeds in foreign lands,

those in the West saw new ways for understanding and ruling the lower orders

of the cities at home...


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- Just after WW2 migration to Britain from former colonies increased due to:

- Ease and relatively low cost of global travel

- Labour shortages within the UK at a time of economic collapse.

-The Royal Commission on Population reported in 1949 that immigration could be

welcomed

without reserveonly if the migrants were of good human stock and were not

prevented by their religion or race from intermarrying with the host population

and becoming merged into it(Holmes, 1988: 210)

- However, this shifted to being far more exclusionary in the 1960s

following rejectionism and the announcement of a white Britain

policy with the Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962.


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-Following this, race and immigration became a key

area within politics.

- This, ultimately, subjected ethnic minority communities to more attention

from the agents of the state: the police and other practitioners within the

criminal justice system.

- The police were already guilty of criminalising black people on the basis of pre-

existing beliefs about their supposed criminality.

-Black young men, in particular, became defined as an inherently criminal class.

- They were subjected to harsher punishments and increased levels of

policing while being portrayed by the media as a social problem.

(Bowling and Phillips, 2002)


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Group Task:

What factors contribute to public

(and institutional) perceptions ofethnicity and crime?


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Questions?

introducing gender, ethnicity and crime

Documents