PICT103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Sydney Gang Rapes, Institutional Racism, 2005 Cronulla Riots
5 Jun 2018
School
Course
Professor
PICT3
Race and Crime
Constructing race and ethnicity
What is race and Ethnicity?
• Race: Physical/biological characteristics (e.g. back, white, asian, etc)
• Ethnicity: Distinctive groups based on commonalities of culture, language, religion,
etc. How they look of speak. (e.g. Kurdish, Anglo-saxon, Han Chinese, etc)
• Nationality: refers to legal citizen ship of particular nation-state(E.g. Australia, india,
Russia, etc)
Fluid Concepts: Powerful Concepts
• Neither race nor ethnicity are solely natural categories - divisions are also
socially constructed
• Both are socially defined - meanings ascribed to physical difference are largely
invented
• Both are dynamic and subject to change
• Both are linked to the maintenance of social boundaries
• Both are linked to hierarchies and the to absence/presence of economic, political and
other types of power
Social Darwinism
• A discredited pseudo-science influence by the work of Charles Darwin
• Conceptualised human races as different stage of sporty - whit people at the top, black
people at the bottom. and everyone else in between
• Behaviour and criminality pre-determined
• popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly in Europe, the US
and Australia
• Strong influence on Nazism, the eugenics movement and other racist ideologies
Immigrants and Crime
The statistical relationship between immigrants and offending
Data regarding race/ethnicity in AUS is limited however data about national origin is more
reality available:
• Immigrants in general have the lowest rates of offending
• 1st-generatin immigrants often more than their parents but sill less than other
Australians
• 2nd+ generation Australia have the highest rates of offending
• Exceptions are immigrant and descendant from New Zealand, Lebanon, Vietnam,
Turkey and Romania
Site of Disadvantage
• Immigrants experience disadvantage across multiple sites:
- Higher than average unemployment
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