First, Middle and Last Name of Student
Introduction
Racial and ethnic relations have been studied from the beginnings of the 20th century, and the way it has been studied has undergone many changes over the years. While these relations were studied as an ideological means to assert one race’s superiority over the other, with the civil rights movements and the influx of immigrants in many western societies, the study of race and ethnic relations have taken much more complex dimensions such as perceptions of people about racial compositions, perceptions of risk and fear of crime, and the interrelations and interconnectedness through social interactions between different races and ethnic minorities (Wilson, 2006).
While arguing that “color lines” are systems used to construct social reality and indicators of inequality, Wilson (2006) argues that race and ethnic relations are important aspects of “social distinction and diversity” (p. 237). He further goes on to explain the main characteristics that classify people into a particular race or ethnic group. Racial groups are mainly constructed based on the physical characteristics of a group of people and the resultant feeling of inferiority or superiority of one group over another, while ethnic groups are classified on nationality or cultural characteristics such as language or religion (Wilson, 2006). These definitions of race and ethnicity are implicitly used as the standard for many studies discussed in this paper.
The relation between crime and race\ethnicity has been a much debated topic in academic circles. Many disciplines like psychology, criminology and sociology have discussed various aspects of crime and its relation to the racial or ethnic group that a person belongs to. The interrelations between crime, race and ethnicity are so pervasive that almost all crime-related issues, especially in the USA, involve race and ethnicity. These issues include, but are not restricted to the way people perceive crime, the way law enforcement agencies react to crime and to also punishments and the public trust and credibility in the justice system (Walker, Spohn and DeLone, 2011). It has also driven police expenditures in various American cities in the past (Jackson and Carroll, 1981). In this context, this paper examines the perception of ethnic and racial composition of a place by its residents and the perceived risk of crime or fear of crime. These studies point out an important differentiation between reality and the social construction of reality in terms of the way people think and react to the question of race and ethnicity, and the way this social construction drives electoral campaigns and policies of lawmakers (Anderson, 1995). The results of these studies make it mandatory to revisit Blumer’s theory of prejudice, which treats prejudice as a socially constructed and learned phenomenon (Blumer, 1958). Most studies found little connection between the actual crime rates, gleaned from official statistics and the perceived risk of crime according to perceived ethnical and racial compositions of the population. However, It is being argued in this paper that papers in sociology studying the issue have not looked at what motivates crime, but only studied the aspect of racial composition in a place.
Perceptions of race, ethnicity and fear of crime
This paper aims to analyze four different studies, spanning over four decades, about the relation between race, ethnicity and the fear of crime. Through these studies, this paper highlights the changes in the way race and ethnicity have been approached from an academic standpoint, while the issues that relate to the topic have undergone very little change. On the surface level, it might seem that beliefs and attitudes might have changed over the years, but this paper argues that these apparent changes are only ‘old wine in new bottle’. The issues of prejudice and perceptions between races have remained the same, although the composition of race and ethnicity and its studies have changed over the years.
The first study analyzed for this paper is a 1982 study by Liska, Lawrence and Sanchiriko, and is titled Fear of Crime as a Social Fact. As the authors suggest, research on fear of crime was a rapidly growing area in the eighties, with many studies focusing on the extent of fear among different social classifications of people (Liska, Lawrence and Sanchiriko, 1982). Liska et. al argue that fear of crime varies across cities and is influenced by the racial composition of cities. Using secondary data from the National Crime Survey (NCS), they measured fear of crime by a rhetorical question of ‘how safe do you feel in your neighborhood?’, a measure that was adopted by many future researchers until 2011. The authors also collected data for victims of interracial crimes from the NCS data, which was then separately analyzed for whites and non-whites. The study found that fear of crime was influenced by racial composition of cities (among other things) for both whites and non-whites even though the way it influenced different significantly between the two groups surveyed. An interesting aspect of this study was its use of NCS data, which treats non-whites as predominantly black.
In what seems a reiteration of the 1982 study, Covington and Taylor (1991) considered race to be an important predictor of fear of crime in 66 neighborhoods studied in Baltimore. The main aim of their research was to examine various factors that led to an increased fear of crime in urban neighborhoods. In their study entitled Fear of Crime in Urban Residential Neighborhoods, Covington and Taylor studied the effect of various independent variables like race and class and subcultural differences on the dependent variable ‘fear of crime’ at both the individual and aggregate levels (Covington and Taylor, 1991). While they went through elaborate sampling techniques in choosing neighborhoods and assessing independent variables, the dependent variable was measured by a standard question “How safe do you feel at day\night?” The results found in this 1991 study are consistent with later studies and showed significant levels of impact of race and subcultural diversity on the fear of crime in neighborhoods. The study found that mostly ‘Black’ neighborhoods were more fearful of crime, and the authors attribute this to perceived neglect of these neighborhoods by the law enforcement agencies. At the individual level, if a person lived in a neighborhood that was composed predominantly of people from another race, then he\she tended to be more fearful of crime. Statistical regression analysis was used to analyze data and discuss the findings, and while this method throws up large, generalised data, it fails to address individual experiences of crime. Thus, one of the main arguments to be made against the Covington and Taylor study is the way the dependent variable is measured, and whether it is an accurate measure of fear of crime.
Ten years later, this flaw in measurement has been effectively addressed by a group of researchers when they examined the Perceived Racial and Ethnic Composition of a Neighborhood and Perceived Risk of Crime in Florida (Chiricos, McEntire and Gertz, 2001). From the theoretical framework of social threat approach, Chricos, McEntire and Gertz analyzed the relation between perceived racial and ethnic composition of a neighborhood and perceived threat of crime among 3000 Florida adults. The sample included whites, blacks and Hispanics. They measured their dependent variable – perceived threat of crime- by going beyond the cognitive measure of ‘how safe one feels’ to questions on the chance of specific crimes happening to the respondents. Respondents were also asked to answer questions on racial and ethnic composition in their neighborhoods. Interviews were conducted over the telephone, with the obvious sampling bias of excluding those people without access to a telephone. One of the most important findings of this study, which ties itself seamlessly to the Covington and Taylor study findings, is the increased perception of threat of crime among whites South Florida neighborhoods, where the Hispanic population is on the rise. The study also found an increased fear of crime among Blacks and Hispanics in other parts of predominantly white Florida neighborhoods.
In 2011, ten years after the Chirico et. al study, Ceobanu set out to examine public perceptions about the impact immigrants had on crime in their neighborhoods. Over the years, the study of race and ethnic relations had changed perceptibly from studying black-white to Hispanic immigrants and to all other ethnic and racial groups that made up the immigrant populations in various parts of the western world. However, the results of Ceobanu’s study showed that though the approach to academic enquiry had changed, not much had changed in terms of people’s attitudes towards race, ethnicity and perception of crimes. In a paper titled Usual Suspects? Public Views about Immigrants’ impact on Crime, Alin M Ceobanu engaged with an extremely relevant research question – was the public perception of immigrants’ impact on crime correlated to personal experiences and official statistics of crime? (Ceobanu, 2011). Using secondary data from the European Social Survey, this study examines 37,085 cases from 21 European countries. As the author admits, the use of secondary data to construct both independent and dependent variables in a study poses limitations and challenges. The study uses a single construct – the effect of immigrants on crime rates- which the author admits cannot be a thorough predictor of a social phenomenon. However, the results are interesting that they correspond to results of studies conducted one or more decades ago. Bivariate and multi-level analyses show little correlation between the perceived impact of immigrants on crime and the actual and official experiences of crime. However, Ceobanu’s study highlights an important aspect of risk and fear perception of crime that other studies have not engaged with. The study found that positive interactions like friendship with immigrants reduced the perception of risk and fear while other factors like right-wing ideologies caused people to perceive a negative impact of immigrants on crime (Ceobanu, 2011).
Though academics have become more inclusive in their study, from including initially only blacks in their research, to studying immigrants from all races in contemporary studies, the problems of perception remain the same. People in a neighbourhood feel unsafe if they are a racial or ethnic minority. This has not changed over the years. But at the same time, these studies have only analyzed the perceptions from mostly cognitive measurements. The lacunae are in the study of motivations for these perceptions as well as fear of crime. The reason for perceptions of fear is largely missing from these studies.
Conclusion
Wilson (2006) traces the evolution of race and ethnic relations studies in the academia into classical, post-civil war and contemporary eras. The four studies discussed above exemplify the latter two of Wilson’s classification in that they evolve from a predominant engagement with race (blacks, African Americans) to the inclusion of power relations and social structure in later studies to the contemporary engagement with various aspects of segregation and integration of various races and ethnicities.
All four studies highlight the importance of prejudice as a group position argued by Blumer (1958), and which goes beyond prejudice as socially learnt negative feelings towards people not belonging to one’s group. For Blumer, prejudice was more of an inherited group position that requires categorizing oneself and others into recognizable groups, and using similarities and comparisons while describing issues sociologically (Bobo, 1999). The findings from different studies discussed show that over four decades, the perception of risk and fear of crime remain largely influenced by racial and ethnic composition of neighborhoods with identical patterns found within groups and between groups. With the reasons for these perceptions not studied, one can only conclude that racial prejudice, often inherited as a group position, remain the main reason for the correlation between race, ethnicity and crime. Even the famous civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson has been known to remark his relief if someone approaching him from the opposite side of the road was not a ‘young, black male’ ((Chiricos, McEntire and Gertz, 2001).
The studies discussed in this paper show that perception of increased risk and fear of crime also is proportionate to the racial composition of a neighborhood. The sub-cultural differences between various groups influence each group’s fear of crime and are likely to increase if one’s group is a minority in one’s neighborhood.
Methodologically, this paper argues that most studies on fear of crime in relation to race and ethnicity have used positivist, quantitative epistemologies. The question of why subcultural differences lead to perceptions of increased risk and fear can better be explored through more subjective explorations of individual experiences through in-depth interviews and field observations. It will be argued that these do not produce data that could be generalized across cross-sections and time periods, but such qualitative data would complement the wealth of data existing on the subject. It would also provide insights into the complexity of prejudice as a group position and could lead to change in social policies and awareness programmes.
Bibliography
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