Abstract
Given current public and policy interest in immigration and the emergence of new ethnic minority identities in the UK, a public perception exists that Black and Minority Ethnicities (BMEs) have substantially different experiences of victimisation, fear of crime and the criminal justice system than their non-ethnic minority counterparts (Webster, 2007, Understanding race and crime. Maidenhead: Open University Press). Since 1982, the British Crime Survey (BCS) has attempted to capture respondent experiences and perceptions in these areas. As such, it is surprising that BCS data have only rarely been used to investigate the possible connections between BME status, victimisation, fear of crime and perceptions of the criminal justice system (CJS). This chapter gives a brief overview of research analysing recent (2001–2007) BCS data via multivariate and multilevel techniques to discern not only how these outcomes vary across ethnicities but also whether the factors predicting those outcomes fluctuate between BME groups. It shows that salient factors vary significantly between different BME groups, suggesting that the common practice of treating ‘White’ as the ‘normal’ status and the distinct BME groups as interchangeable can distort results, leading to erroneous conclusions and potentially exacerbating tensions between BME groups and the CJS.
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Notes
- 1.
The current research does not examine the available White ethnicities. Notably, the BCS does not capture White ethnicities beyond British, Irish and Other. For Other, the only options are English, Scottish and Welsh. Different White ethnicities (e.g. Polish) are not captured. Given the influx of other White ethnicities after the European Union loosened immigration restrictions, this lack of diversity is problematic.
- 2.
Whilst the Black Mixed groups can be employed at both ethnicity levels, the Asian Mixed group can only be used in the general ethnicity analyses because there is no specific ethnicity information appended. Moreover, for the reasons articulated above regarding Other ethnic categories, the Other Mixed group cannot be used in any analyses.
- 3.
Notably, the decision to pool by year necessitates that an indicator of the ‘year of interview’ be included in the analyses. Moreover, such pooling also means that only those indicators available for all years (2001–2007) can be used. This precludes inclusion of some theoretically salient factors (e.g. respondent religion) that were captured only in later sweeps.
- 4.
Unless otherwise specified, the multilevel error terms are fixed, the independent variables un-centred and the outcome variables continuous (Raudenbush and Bryk, 2002).
- 5.
Routine Activities refers to the activities that an individual engages in on a regular basis (such as going to work, shopping, et cetera). Routine activities theory posits that it is via these regular activities that victims and offenders converge, enabling crime to occur.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, grant number RES 163-25-0051. Material from Crown copyright records made available through the Home Office and the UK Data Archive has been used by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland.
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Kautt, P. (2010). Ethnic Variation in Crime-Related Experiences: A Statistical Comparison of Asian and Black Responses on the British Crime Survey 2001–2007. In: Stillwell, J., van Ham, M. (eds) Ethnicity and Integration. Understanding Population Trends and Processes, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9103-1_12
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