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Punished : policing the lives of black and latino boys chapter one summary
Punished : policing the lives of black and latino boys chapter one summary
Punished : policing the lives of black and latino boys chapter one summary
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Victor Rios is a previous gang member, whom “was given the opportunity” to get out of the youth control complex. In his book “Punished”, he analyzes the experiences of young black and Latino boys in Oakland, California. Rios gives us an intimate description of some of the everyday forms of “hyper discrimination” these minority boys experience. This book review will focus on the main concepts explained in chapters one through three from the book Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. Chapter one focuses mainly on the patterns of punishment expressed on Black and Hispanic boys. He begins the chapter by describing a young Hispanic boy’s negative experiences on the streets of his neighborhood with the police as something that occurs …show more content…
In his observation of the boys, he finds that these boys are criminalized by many social forces besides the police. “I found that schools pushed out boys who had been victimized.” (pg. 6). Many boys feel that their school system blames them for crimes that have occurred in their area, or as a danger to other students in the classroom. These boys think that these experiences of victimization are part of their street life. Rios says that if the institutions of social control believe that all young people follow the code of the street, then programs and interactions with margined youth’s will be based on this false information. This dishonest perception of youth is what leads to their …show more content…
The flatlands are Oakland’s poorest districts, not surprisingly associated with crime and drugs. Rios explains that although the youth he is studying are in one of the country’s most dangerous cities, most of the boys in this area live productive lives. “I argue that criminalization is embedded in Oakland’s social order, that it is a fabric of everyday life… developed a powerful youth control complex…” (pg. 27). He believes that youth in Oakland are being criminalized racially, and being further labeled as deviants with the national advents of social control (mass incarcerations). The “collateral consequences” of criminalization was found to be worse for Black’s, but both groups understood the punitive social control as a collective
Research from Hanser and Gomila (2015) revealed that most minority groups “live in lower-class neighborhoods in large urban centers where the greatest concentration of law enforcement officers exists” (p. 340). Racial disparity and discrimination are common among juveniles who are born in the United States from immigrant parents, particularly those residing in lower-class neighborhoods where crime is prevalent. Minority juveniles will also find themselves facing various difficulties and challenges
The book Punished: Policing the lives of Black and Latino boys by Victor Rios is about the Latinos and African Americans in poor parts of the city joining gangs, do violence, and ending up in prison. It is also add how the police are handling the situation differently in these areas. The researcher is Victor Rios and the goal is to change how the police should handle in these poor communities and to have trust to prevent a crime that is unrelated with African Americans and Latinos. Additionally to develop new programs to help these young people out of prison to be productive, to be part of society, and to create a brighter future for these young people and their community. This is
Stereotypes within our society have shaped the way we perceive each other. Throughout the book Punished by Victor Rios, a lot of stereotypes were not only reinforced but also used against a lot of the boys. A lot of the boys presented throughout the book had never actually committed a crime but they were treated as if they had. These boys were constantly labeled and categorized, like folders into a filling cabinet or a bin. Sure Oakland, California had a lot of gang-infested areas but that does not mean everyone in that area is part of a gang or is committing a crime. Thus, this book really demonstrates how one can be perceived or labeled as a criminal due to his or her surroundings and how these stereotypes can destroy one’s chance of freedom.
Rios argues that when someone is socially incapacitated they lack social acceptance in both schools and the labor market. The social incapacitation these young people experience comes from criminalization, which is disguised as a protective mechanism. An example of one of these types of mechanisms is zero tolerance policies that paints everyone as bad, and tends to take shape under protective techniques for potential victims. In this case, the youth control complex is understood to be necessary, as it is disguised as a protective mechanism for social order. The fact of the matter is that it’s a tragedy for everyone rather than only the individuals experiencing the immediate effects of this form of
In order to better understand the rise of these groups, I went into the original neighborhoods to document the history which led to these groups. There are 88 incorporated cities and dozens of other unincorporated places in Los Angeles County (LAC). In the process of conducting this research, I visited all of these places in an attempt to not just identify gangs active in Los Angeles, but to determine their territories. Through several weeks of field work and research conducted in 1996, I identified 274 black gangs in 17 cities and four unincorporated areas in LAC.
In the wake of President Obama’s election, the United States seems to be progressing towards a post-racial society. However, the rates of mass incarceration of black males in America deem this to be otherwise. Understanding mass incarceration as a modern racial caste system will reveal the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy America. The history of social control in the United States dates back to the first racial caste systems: slavery and the Jim Crow Laws. Although these caste systems were outlawed by the 13th amendment and Civil Rights Act respectively, they are given new life and tailored to the needs of the time.In other words, racial caste in America has not ended but has merely been redesigned in the shape of mass incarceration. Once again, the fact that more than half of the young black men in many large American cities are under the control of the criminal justice system show evidence of a new racial caste system at work. The structure of the criminal justice system brings a disproportionate number of young black males into prisons, relegating them to a permanent second-class status, and ensuring there chances of freedom are slim. Even when minorities are released from prisons, they are discriminated against and most usually end up back in prisons . The role of race in criminal justice system is set up to discriminate, arrest, and imprison a mass number of minority men. From stopping, searching, and arresting, to plea bargaining and sentencing it is apparent that in every phases of the criminal justice system race plays a huge factor. Race and structure of Criminal Justice System, also, inhibit the integration of ex offenders into society and instead of freedom, relea...
123) Is there a such thing as a solution to this exceptionally large issue present or will it just be an ongoing form of repression that all men of color will have to endure? Sadly, the only solution is to revamp the entire criminal justice system and schools of thought that have been engrained in people of authority’s minds for so many decades now. The same crimes that are committed in ghetto neighborhoods are committed on Wall Street, for example. The dilemma, however, is that not all people in the ghetto have a roof over their heads to commit said crimes and police officers closely patrol those neighborhoods because they are aware that they can easily arrest a ‘delinquent’. With this being said, while there may never be a sure fix, the possible solution to this problem is to teach police officers and those in authority that Blacks and Whites are one in the same. The same drugs that Blacks do, Whites do; furthermore, Whites can and do commit the same violent crimes, sometimes worse, that Blacks do. The color of a person’s skin or their gender does not dictate their level of violence or delinquency. To attempt to rectify this complication in society, police officers need to
In his novel Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys, Dr. Victor M. Rios aims to demonstrate the catastrophe of criminalization, the flops of using cruel and humiliating punishments that attempt to “‘correct’ and ‘manage’ marginalized youths” (p. 23), and to display the consequences that these practices will have on the paths that teenagers take. He does this by documenting parts of his experience in observing forty boys of Black and/or Latino who are “heavily affected by criminal justice policies and practice” (p. 8). Then, he clarifies how these flaws impacted the boys in these situations. The aim of this essay is to summarize Dr. Rios’ observations and analyze and critique the primary arguments made in the book.
Young black men crowd the corners of Baltimore. They are all hard talk, hard jaws, and crisp white t-shirts as big as sails—strapped. One precocious boy witnesses a shootout near a drug lord’s stash house and takes up sticks to play guns ‘n’ robbers. His trajectory is as follows: he graduates from sticks and piss-balloons, to g-packs and real guns, to taunting cops with brown bags of excrement, to housecats and lighter fluid, to bold, cold-blooded murder. In the words of social reformer Charles Loring Brace, this boy is one of the dangerous class—an undisciplined, delinquent youth. A creation of David Simon’s for HBO’s crime drama, The Wire, the character of Kenard may be a fictionalization, but his presence adds to the much-praised realism of the series. There really are young boys like Kenard that exist on the streets of American cities—falling into the easy and familiar trap of the drug industry. The Wire makes a point to follow the tread of Baltimore’s youth throughout all of its five seasons, introducing the topic of juvenile delinquency to the considerable range of social issues the show discusses. The Wire almost flawlessly represents the factors which cause a young person to “defect”— from the failings of the city school district, a difficult home life, or the struggle of homelessness, to the surrounding environmental influences that arise from life in the city of Baltimore. However, while The Wire and its examination of causalities does many things for the discussion of Juvenile Delinquency on the whole—taking the conversation to levels no other scripted telev...
The labels of each of the groups can initially be attributed to the gangs’ names: Saints refer to the group that the society protected and perceived as boys just having fun, and the derogatory slang term Roughnecks implies that the group similar to Rednecks are rural, poor deviant individuals. In addition to the formal labeling, the societal-reaction approach focuses on the actions of authority figures in the boys’ lives, for instance, the cops constantly threatened the Roughnecks with charges of loitering, whereas they gave the Saints the benefit of the doubt. Both the perspectives of police officers and teachers’ (agents of socialization) influenced the identity of the gangs and emphasized the deviance of the Roughnecks developing generalizations of the members of the group. Although the Saints were never arrested in concordance with the prejudices of the labeling theory, they participated in the same illegal activities as the Roughnecks- some of which can be classified as more severe- including the removal of road barricades and driving under the influence, however society considered these acts juvenile or victimless crimes. While the study does not explain the acceptance of the labels or the ability of certain individuals to escape the stigma, Chambliss’ study exhibits the influence that individuals with power or authority encompass that can shape the definitions of deviance and categorical labeling of individuals as disciples and deviants starting at a young
The book "Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys" is written by Victor M. Rios, who was a former gang member in his hometown and later turned his life around. He went to Berkeley and earned a doctorate in sociology. This book explores how youth of color are punished and criminalized by authorities even under the situation where there is no crimes committed and how it can cause a harmful consequence for the young man and their community in Oakland, California. The goal is to show the consequences of social control on the lives of young people of color and try to remind the authorities. This is important Since society plays a crucial part in shaping the lives of people. And the authorities have biases towards them and mistreat
In Punished: policing the lives of black and Latino boys author Rios, victor. Victor Rios grew up in the ghetto in the Oakland, California in the 1980s. Rios, a former gang member and juvenile delinquency. Rios managed to escape this trend of gang violent as a teen; he managed to escape the gang violent lifestyle from his peers. He provides us a with a depth overview of a three-year study of 40 minority youths, 30 of whom were previously arrested. The study was done in Oakland, California. Rios give us a clear overview inner city young Latino and African American. Rios emphasize on the difficult lives of these young men, who are faced with policies in their schools, communities, and policing. Importantly, he gives us a clear understanding
CNN presents the documentary, Homicide in Hollenbeck, spotlighting gang activity in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollenbeck. This documentary explores the subculture of gangs existing within Hollenbeck from a several perspectives. The people documented include a mother who lost both of her sons to gang violence, a priest that has tried to help rehabilitate gang members, a police officer that has worked in Hollenbeck for five years in the gang unit, and a current gang member. For a conclusion, Homicide in Hollenbeck focuses on a juvenile exposed to gang life on the cusp of decided where they want their life to lead; gangs or freedom. Problems attributed to the high rate of gang activity and number of gangs in Hollenbeck are the high poverty rate, low employment rate, and broken families that make up the majority of Hollenbeck. The crime most discussed, as per the title of the documentary, is homicide The number of gang related homicides has risen even though the criminal behavior of gangs has ultimately decreased in the neighborhood. In order to fight the overwhelming gang presence, the police believe in increasing the amount of gun power on the streets and number of jailed gang members. The priest who runs Homeboy Industries stated that he feels most gang members are just young men who can’t get out of the gang life. With more funds and opportunities, he thinks the problem could be decreased. In the end, the documentary mentions that the FBI has formed a gang center where local law enforcement agencies can share information to gain more knowledge and to better fight the presence of gangs.
This book review covers Policing Gangs in America by Charles Katz and Vincent Webb. Charles Katz has a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice, while Vincent Webb has a Ph.D. in Sociology, making both qualified to conduct and discuss research on gangs. Research for Policing Gangs in America was gathered in four cities across the American Southwest; Inglewood, California, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Phoenix, Arizona. This review will summarize and discuss the main points of each chapter, then cover the relationship between the literature and class discussions in Introduction to Policing and finally it will note the strengths and weaknesses of book.
Black Americans and Hispanic American seem to be stopped more, frisked more , and arrested more. It could be because they commit crimes more, but statistics show that African Americans commit drug offenses the same rate as their white counterparts (Strauss). Moreover Black Americans and White Americans break drug laws at the frequency, but Black Americans face the tougher sentences. African Americans in Philadelphia accounted for 72% of the stops and 80% of the risks of pedestrians (Washington). Additionally this high percentage shows that everyday African Americans are being stopped and frisked and are being purposely targeted. African Americans are only 43.4% of Philadelphia, but are stopped 72% of the time (United States Census Bureau). These surprising percentages give insight to American’s unfair incarceration of minorities. The offenders are not the only ones suffering due to the racist mass incarceration; the families and children of the prisoners are suffering as well. A white child is six times less likely to have a parent in jail compared to a black child (Strauss). In fact, parents pay a big part in a child’s development, and having an absence of one causes a negative impact. An incarcerated parent can lead to the child to drop out of school, have health problems such as asthma, and misbehave in school (Strauss). It’s important to realize that having problems in school, or even dropping out could lead a child to jail. A parent in prison cannot give a child the knowledge to work through cognitive and noncognitive outcome measures (Strauss). To point out, a child that can not work through cognitive problems effectively may turn to crime. This can cause a never ending cycle of families being the prison system. Getting rid of these biases that cause harsher sentences could bring down the prison rate by allowing children to