Ethnicities, racism, crime and criminal justice

Offending, victimization, policing, the work of the courts, and imprisonment are patterned by differences between different ethnic groups. This chapter explores these long-standing patterns and critically examines the reasons for the often uneasy and conflictual relationship between minority ethnic groups and agents of the criminal justice system. It also interrogates new manifestations of ethnic patterns in crime and the administration of justice, particularly those linked to the global issues of controlling migration and terrorism. Finally, the chapter considers how criminological scholarship has developed in this subfield of race, ethnicity, and crime.