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Studying Ethnic Minorities in Relation to Crime and Police Discrimination: Answer to Bowling

NCJ Number
127161
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 30 Issue: 4 Dated: (Autumn 1990) Pages: 493-502
Author(s)
M Junger
Date Published
1990
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This article responds to Bowling's discussion of conceptual and methodological problems in measuring "race" differences in delinquency, and in particular, to criticism of the author's research.
Abstract
Bowling seems to have little confidence in either self-report or arrest data. He argues that ethnic minorities are not necessarily more involved with crime than non-minorities, but that they are discriminated against by the police. He argues that there is no association between family integration and crime among blacks. The rebuttal has four major thrusts: (1) the research examined social control factors as they related to crime in every ethnic group identified in the study rather than looking for "criminogenic black family structure;" (2) it is explained in the research that self report data are not equally valid for different ethnic groups; (3) for an explanation of the occurrence of discrepancies, social control variables rather than culture were examined; and (4) a large body of research shows that racial discrimination does not substantially influence arrest data. 7 notes and 27 references (Author abstract modified)