Last Updated on September 23, 2026 by Karl Thompson
This post contains three practice questions on ethnicity and crime in the style of the crime and deviance section of AQA Paper 3 (7192/3): a 4-marker, a 6-marker and a 10-marker with an item. They are practice questions written for this site, not past-paper questions.
Try each one before reading the answer. For the content, see official statistics on ethnicity and crime and are the police institutionally racist?
Outline two structural factors which may explain differences in offending by ethnicity (4)
Two marks for each factor: one for identifying it, one for explaining how it produces the difference.
Deprivation and poverty. Some ethnic minority groups are far more likely to live in poverty — 39% of people in Black-headed households against 18% in White-headed households (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2026) (1). Left realists argue this produces relative deprivation, which can lead to utilitarian crime as a way of achieving goals that legitimate routes deny (+1).
Institutional racism in policing. Black people are stopped and searched at 3.8 times the rate of White people (Home Office, year ending March 2025) (1). Heavier policing of the same behaviour draws more Black people into the criminal justice system, so recorded offending rises without any difference in actual offending (+1).
Other creditworthy factors: exclusion from school, which removes young people from supervision and qualifications; and labour-market discrimination, which blocks legitimate opportunities.
Why this scores: “structural” means features of the social structure, not of families or culture. Lone-parent households or subcultural values would be cultural factors and would not answer this question.
Outline three ways in which racism may show itself in the criminal justice system (6)
Two marks for each of three ways: one for identifying it, one for explaining it.
Disproportionate stop and search. Black people are searched at 3.8 times the White rate (1), yet searches of Black and White people find something at almost the same rate — 29.9% against 28.4% — which suggests the extra searches rest on stereotypes rather than better grounds (+1).
Remand in custody. Black defendants are 29% more likely than White defendants to be remanded in custody before trial (Ministry of Justice, 2025) (1), which means spending time in prison before being convicted of anything and weakens their position when preparing a defence (+1).
Canteen culture. Bowling and Phillips (2007) describe an informal police occupational culture that is suspicious and racially prejudiced (1). Because street policing involves wide discretion with little supervision, those stereotypes shape who gets stopped, questioned and arrested (+1).
Other creditworthy ways: the trust deficit identified by the Lammy Review (2017), leading Black defendants to plead not guilty more often and lose the sentence discount; the under-representation of minority ethnic officers (91.5% of police officers are White); and the failure to investigate crimes against minority victims properly, as in the Stephen Lawrence case.
Applying material from Item A, analyse two criticisms of the view that police racism is the main reason for the higher imprisonment rate of some ethnic minority groups (10)
In with-item 10-markers, both of your points must come from the item. You are credited for analysis and application, so develop each point rather than adding extra ones.
Item A
Black people make up around 4% of the population of England and Wales but 12% of the prison population. Some sociologists argue that this is mainly the result of racism within the police. However, other ethnic minority groups who also experience discrimination are not over-represented to the same extent. Some sociologists also argue that comparisons with the general population are misleading, because the people the police actually encounter on the streets are not a cross-section of that population.
Hints
The item gives you both points:
- “Other ethnic minority groups… are not over-represented to the same extent” — the selective racism criticism, associated with left realists Lea and Young.
- “The people the police actually encounter… are not a cross-section” — the available population criticism, associated with Waddington et al. (2004).
You do not need to name these sociologists for full marks, but it helps your analysis.
A possible answer
One criticism is that police racism cannot explain why the over-representation of Black people is not matched by other ethnic minority groups. As the item notes, other minority groups who also face discrimination are not over-represented to the same extent. Left realists Lea and Young argue that if police racism were the main cause, the police would have to be selectively racist — targeting Black people but not Asian people. Current data supports the pattern they describe: Black people are stopped and searched at 3.8 times the White rate, but Asian people at only 1.4 times. Custody rates also barely differ once people reach court — 33% for White defendants and 35% for Black defendants — and Ministry of Justice analysis finds no significant effect of ethnicity on sentence length once offence type and plea are controlled. This suggests that other factors, such as differences in deprivation or in offence type, may explain part of the prison figures. However, the criticism is weakened by the fact that Bangladeshi and Pakistani households have higher poverty rates than Black households, so deprivation cannot simply replace racism as the explanation either.
A second criticism is that comparing prison or stop and search figures with the general population uses the wrong baseline. The item states that the people police encounter on the streets are not a cross-section of the population. Waddington et al. (2004) argue that the relevant comparison is the available population — those actually present in public places in the areas and at the times the police patrol. Police resources are concentrated in inner-city areas, where the street population is younger and more ethnically diverse than the country as a whole, so higher stop and search rates for Black people may partly reflect who is present rather than who is targeted. Since stop and search is often the first stage in a chain that leads to arrest, charge and imprisonment, this would mean the prison figures inherit a bias created by deployment decisions rather than by individual officers’ racism. The limit of this argument is that it cannot explain why searches of Black and White people produce near-identical find rates, or why section 60 searches, which require no suspicion, show the largest disparity of all.
Why this scores: each point opens with a bold lead sentence taken from the item, is developed with evidence and a named study, and shows analysis — including how far the criticism itself holds. Both points are clearly different from each other.
The 30-mark essay
For a full essay on this topic see evaluate the view that differences in crime rates between ethnic groups are mainly the result of the way the criminal justice system operates.
Crime and Deviance Revision Bundle
If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my Crime and Deviance Revision Bundle — 32 pages of revision notes, seven colour mind maps and 12 exam practice questions with exemplar answers, written for the AQA specification.
Signposting and Related Posts
This post has been written for students studying crime and deviance as part of the AQA A-Level Sociology course, Paper 3 (7192/3). For more practice questions see my page on exam advice, short answer questions and essays, and for the content see the ethnicity section of my crime and deviance page.
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