Race and Drug Trials

The Social Construction of Guilt and Innocence

Anita Kalunta-Crumpton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429824500
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1999, this book offers an innovative study of the impact that courts have upon the representation of black people in criminal statistics in the UK. In the past, research in this area has focused on sentencing and upon why black people are disproportionately represented in the prison population. Such studies have, however, overlooked the potential significance of discrimination in the pre-sentence social processes of the courts. Anita Kalunta-Crumpton adopts a new approach which examines the progress of cases prior to sentencing. Her book also locates the courts within a theoretical context of social construction. It thus, unlike earlier quantitative studies, represents the court system as non-mechanical. In this way 'Race and Drug Trials' exposes the vital role that the trial process plays in the apparent racialization of 'justice'.

The volume is part of a series which brings together research from a range of disciplines including criminology, cultural studies and applied social sciences, focusing on experiences of ethnic, gender and class relations. In particular, the series examines the treatment of marginalised groups within the social systems for criminal justice, education, health, employment and welfare.

Part 1
The Background

1 The Problem of Disproportion: The Debate

'Black Criminality'

As previously noted, black disproportionate presence in the criminal statistics has been examined within the context of 'black criminality' (Stevens and Willis, 1979; Lea and Young, 1984, 1993; Reiner, 1985). Of the many theoretical explanations for 'black criminality', the significant role of economic and social factors in determining the involvement of black people in criminal activities has dominated the debate. Studies and Official statistics have indicated that black people are more socially and economically marginalised than other racial groups and are over-represented in the lower socio-economic class (Brown, 1984; Solomos, 1988a, 1988b, 1989; Hiro, 1992; Pitts, 1986; Lawrence, 1982; Stevens et al., 1988, Brooks, 1987; Rankin, 1991; Box and Hale, 1986; Penal Affairs Consortium, 1996). On comparing such indicators as the employment, housing and educational conditions of black people with those of other racial groups, the conclusion has been that the circumstances of black people are worse than those of their counterparts in other racial groups (Runnymede Trust and Radical Statistics Race Group, 1980; Brown, 1984; Field and Haikin, 1971; Hepple, 1968; Day, 1989). For example, the rate of unemployment for black people is higher than that of their white counterparts and black people are mostly concentrated in unskilled and semi-skilled jobs. Black families often reside in inner cities or ghetto areas and this certainly introduces an element of educational disadvantage because these areas are worst served by the education system. And ultimately, as Donald (1956, p.42) points out, 'lade of education stands in the way of economic success and the achievement of social status...'. In relation to housing, the overall quality 'of the housing of black people is much worse than the quality of housing in general in this country' (Brown, 1984, p.305) since they are housed in the worst accommodation in deprived residential areas of the city.

One line of argument set out in the deprivation-criminality theory is that which emphasises the existence of fundamental defects in society and argues that society has failed to provide adequate societal institutions, and has through social injustice and unfair treatment been unable to equally distribute resources and satisfy the expectations and demands of certain groups of people (Benyon and Solomos, 1987; Benyon, 1984; Cohen and Bains, 1988; Brown, 1984; Solomos, 1988a, 1988b). Consequently, the ethnic minority population 'occupy a marginal role in education, employment and other spheres of social and economic life' (Cross, 1982, p.35). Brown's view that the circumstances of black people in all spheres of life 'continue to be worse than that of white people' (1984, p.315) is explained in relation to the social injustice that exists within societal institutions:

First, it is clear that racialism and direct racial discrimination continue to have a powerful impact on the lives of black people. Second, the position of the black citizens of Britain largely remains, geographical and economically, that allocated to them as immigrant workers in the 1950s and 1960s. Third, it is still the case that the organisations and institutions of British society have policies and practices that additionally disadvantage black people because they frequently take no account of the cultural differences between groups with different ethnic origins (ibid., p.318).

Scarman (1981, 1982) shares a similar view about racial discrimination when he described the Brixton riot of 1981 as a product of deprivation and acknowledged the negative impact of racial discrimination on the socio-economic life of black people. In providing the social background to the Brixton riot, he described the population of Brixton as being composed of a combination of a high proportion of deprived and vulnerable groups in the population as a whole, residing in an inner city area at its late stage of social and economic decay in the form of high unemployment levels, poor educational standard, appalling housing conditions, poor environment and lack of recreational facilities and so forth. This is a community mostly made up of unskilled and semi-skilled manual workers. This general deprivation is suffered most by ethnic minorities, especially, the black community of Brixton who experience higher rates of unemployment. Scarman (1981, para. 2.35) summarises the deprived circumstances of black people thus:

...overall they suffer from the same deprivation as the 'host community' (i.e the white population), but much more acutely. Their lives are led largely in the poorer and more deprived areas of our great cities. Unemployment and poor housing bear upon them very heavily, and the educational system has not adopted itself satisfactorily to their needs. Their difficulties have internalised by the sense they have of a concealed discrimination against them, particularly in relation to job opportunities and housing. Some young blacks are driven by their despair into feeling that they are rejected by the society of which they would wish to enjoy the same opportunities and accept the same risks as everyone else. But their experience leads them to believe that their opportunities are less and their risks are greater. Young people feel neither socially nor economically secure.

The argument that racial discrimination in the education system affects black people's educational life has been used to dispute the assertion that black people are educationally under-achieving (Carby, 1982; Field and Haikin, 1971). To Carby (1982, p.205) the 'educational policy and practice actually constitutes black children as an alien group that present "problems" that are external to "normal schooling'". Field and Haikin (1971, p.65) further add:

The fault does not of course he in any ineducability in the children themselves. The sad fact is that, if a child attending school in this country today is coloured, there is a high probability that the child will also fell into the category of educationally underprivileged or deprived children.

The scenario outlined by interpretations that focus on societal dysfunction is that of a likelihood of criminal behaviour stemming principally from deprivation (Scarman, 1981, 1987). This argument predicated upon Mertonian and Marxist frameworks, and echoing the views of the Chicago School depicts the deplorable socio-economic condition of certain individuals as produced by external forces beyond their control. According to this line of thought, individuals who find themselves pressurised by their position in the social structure inevitably stray from conventional lifestyles. Marxists, Mertonians and Chicagoans uphold that deprivation is synonymous with crime, and view the difference in socio-economic circumstances in the context of factors created by the malfunctioning of the social structure. From a Marxist perspective, society cannot attain a state of equilibrium if the social system fails to distribute resources equitably and accordingly, criminal behaviour is explained within the realm of the political and economic structure of society - in the form of capitalism - which creates deprivation and poverty and in turn lead to crime (Reid, 1979; Haralambos and Holborn, 1990). High levels of unemployment, for instance, emerge from a breakdown in the material structure of a capitalist society resulting to crime. Merton (1957) also argues that crime emerges when the social order is incapable of providing opportunities for people to enhance their life chances or improve their status. Limited legitimate avenues of achieving conventional success, solidified by a class structure, explain the choice of illicit means to economic success among members of the lower socio-economic class:

Of those located in the lower reaches of the social structure, the culture makes incompatible demands. On the one hand, they are asked to orient their conduct toward the prospect of large wealth...and on the other, they are largely denied effective opportunities to do so institutionally. The consequence of this structural inconsistency is a high rate of deviant behaviour (ibid., p.146).

The Chicago School attributes criminal behaviour to the economically peripheral sections of society - the inhabitants of city areas referred to by the Chicagoans as the 'transitional zone'. This zone, mostly occupied by the immigrant population, is characterised by weak social organisation and harbours poverty, crime and delinquency (Carey, 1978; Downes and Rock, 1988; Haralambos and Holborn, 1990). Deficient social organisation originates principally from structural and cultural circumstances (such as high levels of population turnover, unstable standards of life, weak social control and diversity in values) which lead to high levels of unemployment, poverty and crime.

'Black criminality' theory favours the view that crime lend itself most commonly to poor life conditions and social problems in lower class areas (Cloward and Ohlin, 1961; Clinard, 1968; Miller, 1986). That the black community suffer an adverse and complex form of deprivation not experienced by other racial groups, and reside in inner cities characterised by economic, social and physical degeneration, is stressed, as a fundamental cause of their criminality. Lea and Young have argued that 'black people have a higher crime rate than would be expected from their numbers as a proportion of the population' (1984, p. 165), and add that the black community are more likely to commit crimes than other racial groups because they are economically disadvantaged and also experience racial discrimination. Pitts (1986, p. 121) acknowledges the direct relationship between 'black criminality' and economic deprivation in his observation that crimes committed by blacks are opportunistic in nature, often 'concerned with procuring small amounts of money - what have been described as crimes of poverty'. According to Pitts (ibid., p. 143), 'young black people who live in the most crowded homes, whose parents have the lowest income, who go to under-resourced schools and have the poorest educational and employment opportunities, are engaged in crimes of poverty'. Scarman (1981, para. 2.23) observes that it is the social and economic circumstances of young black people that force them out in the street and into the 'seedy commercially run clubs of Brixton'; it is there that they meet 'criminals, who appear to have no difficulty in obtaining the benefits of a materialist society'. Box and Hale (1986) also note that during periods of increasing unemployment, economic and social deprivation are more severely felt by the young and ethnic minority groups and many amongst these already reside in declining inner cities. Unemployment, they add, falls heaviest on the black population, especially, the black youth, and the likelihood is that those who suffer acute deprivation and economic deprivation in particular would find crime an alternative means of survival.

The supposed disproportionate black involvement in crime has also been highlighted by further attempts to analyse 'black criminality' in relation to certain forms of disadvantage believed to be relative to the black population (Gilroy, 1987a; Solomos, 1988a; Cohen and Bains, 1988). Instead of prioritising racial discrimination or failure of social policies to accommodate black people's needs, this line of argument pinpoints the impact of racial disadvantage on the lives of black people by focusing on, for instance, weak family structure, language difficulties and educational underachievement as fundamental preconditions of 'black deprivation' (Lea and Young, 1984; John, 1980, 1981; Cashmore and Troyna, 1982) and subsequent involvement in crime. This approach places the blame for deprivation on the deprived by portraying the various problems experienced by black people as originating from certain inadequacies and incapacities relative to the black community. It is argued that those who are deprived are unable or unwilling to provide adequately for their well-being and on this basis, neither political arrangements nor society in general are accountable for the deprivation suffered by such people. Black people are therefore blamed for causing their own handicaps and creating their own socio-economic conditions which in turn have reproduced poverty and deprivation, thereby making them victims of their own circumstances. This approach is referred to as 'blaming the victim' (Ryan, 1976) or 'social pathology'. Ryan has claimed that this individualistic approach is often used to hide the injustices suffered by the deprived in society.

Amidst the ascribed handicaps, the black family has received a very strong criticism for inadequate socialisation of black youth and subsequent black youth involvement in unlawful acts (Cross, 1982). 'Black criminality' is viewed as an expression of a family breakdown and pathological character of black families (Lea and Young, 1984; Humphrey and John, 1971; Pitts, 1993). The issue of a single parent, most times, the failure of the family to instil fatherly responsibility in the black males, has notably been thought to explain the likelihood of young black males engaging in all sorts of criminal activities, hence the increased vulnerability to arrest. Cashmore and Troyna (1982) reveal similar view in the account that a lack of social control exerted by the West Indian family, due historically to the fragmentation of the family structure in slavery, leads to a greater black youth involvement with the police. Black families make up the highest percentage of one-parent households (Hall, 1989) headed by black women (Chigwada, 1991) and the popular ideology is that as single parents, black women violate the traditional English family norms, thereby paving the leeway for their young ones to be crime prone (ibid.). The relationship between the assumed deficiencies in the social organisation of black people and the supposed black involvement in crime has a bearing on what Gilroy (1987a) referred to as the 'biological culturalism of conservative explanation'.

Looking at the 'deprivation-black criminality' link from a cultural perspective is the notion that black deprivation stems from black people's cultural beliefs which presumably do not emphasise upward mobility values (Sherman and Wood, 1979). Again, the black population are perceived as having linguistic problems and being educationally underachieving (Hiro, 1992; Hall, 1989; Solomos, 1988a, 1988b). Whilst Asians who, like black people, came to Britain with similar expectations made their way into the commercial sphere and advanced educationally, black people show apathy towards education and employment (Cashmore and Troyna, 1982). Failure at school and the lack of interest in education culminated in what Cashmore and Troyna (ibid., p.4) describe as:

successive rounds of unqualified school-leavers recruited to the lower orders of the occupational world or registered with the Department of Employment. The 'twilight activities' of thieving and hustling are seen by some as 'strategies of survival', almost inevitable alternatives to mainstream existence.

Whether the marginalised position of black people is self-inflicted or originates in socio-economic forces beyond their control, the identification of black people with crime is perceived as a consequence of their membership of a disadvantaged group. Their peripheral position in society is popularly believed to make them more likely to resort to crime if they are unable to fulfil their aspirations through legitimate channels.

Policing and Arrest

Being young, male, black, unemployed and economically disadvantaged are all associated with a higher probability of being stopped, searched, arrested, charged, making complaints against the police (especially of assault), and failing to have these complaints substantiated (Reiner, 1985, p.128).

That black people are over-represented more than other racial groups in the criminal statistics has been attributed to police use of discriminatory practices against than. This explanation is equally shared by studies which view the problem of disproportion within the realm of 'black criminality' and deprivation. According to Stevens and Willis (1979), the overrepresentation of black people in the arrest rate is partly due to differential rates of offending - attributed to the socio-economic deprivation faced by black people, the age-profile of the black population and police discrimination. Lea and Young's (1984, p.167) evidence also point in a similar direction - relating the disproportionate black arrest rate to two key factors: 'increased...black crime and police predisposition to associate blacks with crime'. In Reiner's (1985, p.132) observation, 'it seems clear that the disproportionate black arrest rate is the product of black deprivation, police stereotyping and the process by which each of these factors amplifies the other'.

Black people face a greater chance of being stopped, arrested and charged by the police than other racial groups (particularly whites) (Hiro, 1992; Smith and Gray, 1985; Willis, 1983; Benyon, 1986; Dholakia and Sumner, 1993; Smith, 1994; Norris et al., 1992; Walker et al., 1990) somewhat on the basis of police assumption rather than evidence (Smith and Gray, 1985). A police officer's decision to 'arrest, warn, caution, assist...a suspect' is not simply made 'by taking into account the legal facts of a case' (Box, 1981, p.171). Box adds:

he has to introduce other criteria: these usually reflect his personal values, beliefs and prejudices, and those of the social group with whom he identifies. It is the covert and routine introduction of non-legalistic considerations that raises the issue of bias, for they normally influence the police-suspect encounter in such a way that lower strata suspects are frequently arrested (ibid.).

Smith and Gray (1985) draw attention to how the police associate black people with crime and, inter alia, view their deprived socio-economic condition as a symptom of their criminality. A popular police conception of black people is that of a poverty stricken, disorganised and alienated group, usually on the way to committing a crime (ibid.); their residential areas are perceived by the police as crime ridden (Institute of Race Relations, 1979; Blom-Cooper and Drabble, 1982). It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when people who fit the stereotype of likely offenders are indiscriminately harassed, arrested, prosecuted and so forth resulting in a vicious cycle of deviance amplification (Young, 1971). Those areas of deprivation attract saturation policing (Demuth, 1978), and as Cain and Sadigh (1982) state, offences that arise out of proactive policing bring many black people before the court. Therefore, the difference in offences for which blacks and whites are charged is possibly 'brought about by differential patrolling and charging practices on the part of the police' (Cain and Sadigh, 1982, p.88). Police charging practices demonstrate less likelihood of blacks receiving a police caution than their white counterparts; instead, blacks are more likely to be charged even as first offenders and whites with more previous convictions than blacks are more likely to be cautioned by the police (Landau, 1981; Landau and Nathan, 1983). Steven's and Willis' study on Race, Crime and Arrests (1979) had earlier shown evidence of police bias in arrest. Although the researchers were careful coming to a definite conclusion, they highlighted that arrest rates for black people were so disproportionately high as to raise the question of whether black arrest rates actually reflected their involvement in crime. Whilst their findings suggest the role of p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• The Series Editor's Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part 1 The Background
• Part 2 The Substance
• Bibliography
• Index