Introduction

Historically, discourses in the area of race and crime have focused on the criminalisation and criminality of Britain's black communities, constructing a racialised ‘black’–‘white’ dichotomy. Other minority ethnic communities, such as those who identify as ‘Asian’, have been less subject to scrutiny. Two things have altered this terrain. First, in the era of late modernity, 21st-century Britain is a milieu of racial, ethnic and cultural hybridity, intersectionality and change. Emergent racisms, prejudices, folk devils and moral panics have transformed and widened racialised perspectives on crime to include other minority ethnic groups. Second, several events (both before and following the attacks on 9/11) have indicated a form of criminalisation specific to British Asians, namely, Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims. This chapter reflects on these issues in order to assess whether such developments have led to the formulation of new racisms, prejudices and folk devils or if they are illustrative of a regurgitation of old discourses in the race, ethnicity, culture and crime debate.

The analysis of ‘race’ and ‘racisms’ in this chapter is positioned in the context of existing work on race issues in criminology but with a specific slant on ‘sides’ and ‘values’ in relation to the experiences of British South Asian Muslims. The political imperatives of global and British discourses on Islam have made it necessary to ask whose values are favoured and, more interestingly, whose side is to be taken (Becker, 1967). In this sense, the political discourse has bought to the fore – and even encouraged – the criminalisation of Britain's South Asian Muslim population to such a degree that questions are raised regarding the values and mores of these communities, even whose perspective is seen as more ‘credible’. As Becker (1967, p 240) states: ‘in case of deviance, the hierarchal relationship is a moral one … the subordinate parties are those who, it is alleged, have violated that morality’. So, to what degree is the criminalisation of Britain's South Asian Muslim communities a construct of political machinations and media discourse or a valid portrayal of the criminal facts? The chapter addresses this by discussing the factors and discourses that have contributed to the criminalisation of Britain's South Asian Muslim communities.

In this analysis, criminalisation is the act of labelling a community, or indeed its members, as ‘criminal’ due to its perceived associations and engagement with certain illegal and deviant activities.