Ethnicity and Crime under the Microscope

Ethnic Communities Council of NSW

Monday 2 November 1998
Opening Address

Today’s conference brings together two very important topics, which are right in the centre of public debate. Everyone has an opinion on multiculturalism and the same is true for crime. It is hardly surprising then that bringing the two together under the title of ethnicity and crime is bound to set sparks flying. With so many questions about the exact relationship between the two areas, it is a pity that we have so few satisfactory answers. Today, we have the opportunity to look at how the community sees and responds to crime. In doing so, we not only have the opportunity to dispel some of the misconceptions that exist about the relationship between ethnicity and crime, but also look realistically at the barriers that can exist in addressing crime in a multicultural society.

We need to be cautious about linking ethnicity and crime in the one breath. Knowing little about it has not prevented certain groups from drawing conclusions at both ends of the spectrum. While some groups deny the social interplay between crime and ethnic background, others have gone to the extreme of blaming ethnicity for criminal behaviour. Neither view does justice to the reality that crime is a community problem and that the community needs to come up with sensitive and creative ways of addressing it.

There is a very clear relationship between socio-economic factors and criminal behaviour. High unemployment, low socio-economic status, and disrupted family life are all factors, which are associated with high crime rates. When this is the starting point for looking at why crime happens, we can see that a person’s race, ethnicity or culture does not in itself mean that a person is more prone to commit crime. People from ethnic communities are no more or less susceptible than anyone else to the pressures of poverty, unemployment or poor education.

This seems obvious, but confusion remains in the community about how crime and ethnicity inter-relate, and this can lead to some flawed notions. One is the idea that immigration increases crime rates by letting criminals into Australia. While it is true that some criminals are migrants and it might be true that some people even use the immigration system to enter Australia and commit crime, is it fair to say that immigration causes crime? The response of any fair-minded person would be no, acknowledging that most people migrate to Australia with the simple hope of establishing a better life for themselves and their families.

Another flawed notion is that certain groups are more or less law abiding than others. While it is true that in some areas some kinds of crime are committed by people from particular ethnic communities, we should avoid stigmatising communities for the crimes committed by a few of their members. For example, in Cabramatta, experience on the street tells us that much of the low-level drug dealing is committed by members of the Indo-Chinese community. But this tells us nothing about the wider Indo-Chinese community. The total number of people from the Indo-Chinese community involved in drug crime is small and it would be quite wrong to say that the Indo-Chinese community is more prone to crime than any other. It is a common error to blame the many for the actions of a few. It is the same error that we saw at work a moment ago when I was talking about immigration and crime. Perhaps another example will show how the logic trap works.

Most white-collar crime is committed by lawyers and accountants, but most lawyers and accountants are not white-collar criminals. White-collar crime is in fact committed by only a tiny proportion of a group whose members by and large are among the most law abiding in the country.

One of our biggest problems is getting a clear picture from the data of how ethnicity is represented in actual crime rates. Unfortunately, we have no data to tell us just how much crime people from particular ethnic backgrounds are involved in. Participation rates are uncertain because neither police nor courts collect data on the ethnicity of offenders. A lack of data means that common exaggerations of the relationship between ethnicity and crime can’t be substantiated, but at the same time, it makes it difficult to counteract uninformed views about crime and ethnicity.

In terms of data, the only insight we have into ethnicity and crime is the census data collected within NSW prisons. The problem with this is that it only tells us about the people who have been convicted of crimes and have been given gaol sentences. The data falls well short of giving us a full picture because it can’t take into account offenders who are either not formally charged or who do not go to gaol. There is also a whole range of crime that goes unreported, which makes it difficult to get a realistic idea of what the numbers are like for both offenders and victims. It is therefore extremely important for law and justice agencies to collect ethnicity data from the people who come into contact with them.

Sketchy data poses three main problems to understanding and addressing crime. The first is that we are unable to draw any conclusions about just what the relationship between crime and particular ethnic groups is. The second is that it makes it difficult to combat some of the stereotypes that arise out of this in popular ideas about ethnic groups as both the perpetrators and victims of crime. This is particularly important in guiding law enforcers in addressing the issue of crime on the streets and working towards community safety. And the third is that it makes it difficult to design culturally appropriate social supports which aim to alleviate some of the social conditions that might foster criminal behaviour.

What does research tell us? Again, we have little to go on, but what we have does not seem to support the causal link between ethnicity and crime. A recent report by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research looked at the participation rates and risk factors facing juveniles. I am grateful to the Bureau for providing me with a summary of the findings from this report, which has not yet been released. The study was based on a representative sample of secondary school students across NSW and looked at whether the ethnicity of a student’s parents related to whether or not the student was involved in assault, malicious damage or theft. The measures used for ethnicity were the country where the student’s parents were born and the language that the student spoke at home. The only influence that ethnicity seemed to have was that rates of malicious damage were less for students who only spoke a language other than English at home.

Studies such as this are helpful and encouraging as a window on a difficult issue. It points to the need for comprehensive data on the subject across all law and justice agencies.

When crime wears the face of ethnicity on any level, then law enforcement gets harder. For law enforcers, crime can seem insurmountable because of language and culture. After all, if you can’t communicate with an individual or a group of people, then there is the potential for misunderstanding and friction. There is then the risk that this friction can lead to an overemphasis on law and order where the Police and ethnic communities may see each other as opponents rather than partners. The effect on Police can be draining and counter-productive in the effort to understand and reduce crime rates.

Instead of looking at groups or individuals as potential criminals who need to be kept in line, police, courts and social support networks need to forge links of trust and co-operation with leaders in the community itself. To the credit of the NSW Police Service, there is an increasing awareness that community partnership can be an effective response to crime. Initiatives such as the Police and Ethnic Communities Advisory Council, and the Police and Community Training program are examples of the willingness of the Police Service to work with communities to understand local issues and find local solutions.

It is also to the credit of Senior Police that in the wake of explosive events in Bankstown recently, the first response was to bring community leaders together.

It is the equal responsibility of the community to work with police to foster safe and open-minded communities. If we acknowledge the truth that we can’t blame crime on a particular feature of a particular group in the community, then we need to look at addressing crime co-operatively and inclusively. This requires us to be innovative and sensitive to the needs of the community as perpetrators and victims of crime.

In addition to community policing, we should also be looking at social support services, which can assist to reduce the reasons somebody may have to commit a crime, as well as respond to the needs victims. In looking at effective government and community programs and services to provide this support, we need to pay particular attention to the needs of ethnic communities. As I have mentioned, socio-economic factors play a large part in setting the scene for criminal behaviour. If we want to alleviate these circumstances, then we also have to make sure that we do it in a way that fully understands what difficulties ethnic communities face in accessing services, getting jobs, reading and writing and supporting families.

We need to take into account every element of the makeup of our society which includes culture and ethnicity, but also includes poverty, unemployment, alienation and disrupted family life, in understanding why crime exists, who commits it and who the victims are. At the same time, we can not afford to be naive about the true fears that members of the community hold about crime and the ways that governments and communities respond to that fear.

Perhaps this implies that a part of our discussion within this area should focus on the cultural and political climate of our society, and especially how it leads us to think of crime and criminals. If we shift the emphasis to ethnic community members as victims of crime for a moment, then the issue of ‘hate crimes’ in the community illustrates this point well. It is ironic that while some members of the community are all too eager to address the ethnicity of criminals, they shy from the topic of victims whose only crime is being of a particular ethnic background. The NSW Police Service has taken the initiative of establishing a pilot project in the Newtown area command where prejudice related crimes are recorded on a database. It is vital that we address the issue of hate crimes in the interests of both the individual victims and also the ethnic community groups of Australia who are the symbolic targets of individual incidents. We should perhaps not only be asking ourselves what the relationship between ethnicity and crime is, but the role that social conditioning and lifestyle plays in the equation.

I hope that today acts as a starting point for us to ask these questions. It is clear that there is no single way of looking at the relationship between ethnicity and crime and little can be taken for granted in debating the relationship. They are issues, which we are challenged to think about intelligently and broadly in our efforts not only to understand crime, but also to place it squarely in the social arena that hosts it.