Suchergebnisse

Abstract: The article addresses problems of ethnic and foreign minorities in the criminal justice system in the Federal Republic of Germany. Analysis of police and court data suggests at first glance that members of foreign minorities commit far more crimes than are committed by the population's majority. But controlling for differences in those variables which make considerable differences between foreign minorities and the population's majority, especially socio‐economic status, differences in crime rates fade away. It is argued that cultural conflict theory does not provide an adequate framework for explaining crime occurring within foreign minorities. Available evidence suggests that deprivation and control theories are more powerful in explaining criminal behaviour within ethnic and foreign minorities, they seem also to he more useful in guiding criminal policy dealing with foreign offenders. Although crime problems have been of paramount importance in criminological studies dealing with ethnic and foreign minorities, problems of criminal victimisation should be taken into account, too. Furthermore, problems of processing members of ethnic minorities through the criminal justice system are touched on in the article with special emphasis on those points in the process which are hypothesised to embody great potential for discriminatory decision‐making

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