My research topic explores the prevalence that economic privilege has on implications of crime. Privilege is a word used often in today's society, but to what extent do we truly understand how privilege is exercised in our justice system. My research topic explores the prevalence that economic privilege has on implications of crime. The economic status of many determines how fair they are treated and viewed by the legal system. People of a higher economic status, sometimes do not understand what it means to have the privilege of wealth on their side. Through the careful analysis of articles and books, I will provide sufficient evidence that points to the mistreatment of the underprivileged in the criminal justice system. The emergence of carelessness …show more content…
Many claim that the ease at which people of wealth can acquire the help and funds to pay off their debts is unfair because it is so simple for those with more to pay off those fees. The emergence of a clear upper class in the criminal system has been more prevalent now more than ever before. Featuring celebrities and the elite in our society, it often demonstrates the lack of care the rich have towards the implications of crimes. These crimes that the 1% take so lightly, are often detrimental to someone who comes from a lower class system who has a lower paying job and often times more bills and taxes to worry about. Since everyone is fined and charged equally, in theory, it is a fair and just system, however, a $1,000 DUI fine is detrimental to someone on a $34,000 a year salary versus someone who makes over $343,000 a year, which is the mean salary of the 1%. With all the slander towards the poor, it is never explored why they are viewed in the manner they are. It is due to the ease at which the rich get away with the crimes they feel as though there are little to no ramifications for their crimes. The demography of white collar crime also yields a very interesting result. It seems that most white collar criminals are white men in their 40’s to 50’s (Alalehto). This stat is accurate because of general gender occupational divisions in our society today puts women at lower paying jobs than men. As for the age, most established individuals with businesses and brands are of an older age because of the time it takes to build up wealth and a brand (Alalehto). Most younger people do not have the time and means to engage in white collar crime due to the amount of time it takes to get to that specific income
Schanzenbach, Max; Yaeger, Michael L., (2006). Prison time, fines, and federal white-collar criminals: The anatomy of a racial disparity. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 96(2), p757-793. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
In The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison by Jeffery Reiman and Paul Leighton, four multifaceted issues are focused on and examined. These issues are the Unites States high crime rates, efforts in explaining the high crime rates, where the high crime rates originally came from, and the success attained at a high price. The initial key issue that Reiman and Leighton discuss is America’s high rising crime rates with the understanding of the people that believe policy and regulations are the causes of the decrease in crime. The many graphs throughout the chapter represent information that undoubtedly illustrates that specific policy and regulation may cause rates to become stagnate or strike a plateau. While the rule makers make it appear as though their organization is functioning. Later guns and gun control policy are discussed. With the stern enforcement of the gun policy, at the time, crime appeared to decline, or become stagnate resulting in a plateau effect that is illustrated in the graphs. Countless arrests were made with large quantities of people being imprisoned. Du...
In recent times, it has become very evident that wealth plays a major factor in the judicial system. There have been many cases that display the wealthy being given less of a punishment than the lower classes. In one particular case a teen, Ethan Couch, was driving under the influence after stealing beer from Walmart and he swerved off road, killing four pedestrians. The judge sentenced him to 10 years’ probation; this outraged many people because the usual punishment is a life sentence. Mr. Couch claims he suffers from “Affluenza”, which is a psychological problem that is caused by children being extremely privileged. Ethan Couch should not have received probation because of his family’s status, because he was driving under the influence,
The majority of our prison population is made up of African Americans of low social and economic classes, who come from low income houses and have low levels of education. The chapter also discusses the amount of money the United States loses yearly due to white collar crime as compared to the cost of violent crime. Another main point was the factors that make it more likely for a poor person to be incarcerated, such as the difficulty they would have in accessing adequate legal counsel and their inability to pay bail. This chapter addresses the inequality of sentencing in regards to race, it supplies us with NCVS data that shows less than one-fourth of assailants are perceived as black even though they are arrested at a much higher rate. In addition to African Americans being more likely to be charged with a crime, they are also more likely to receive harsher punishments for the same crimes- which can be seen in the crack/cocaine disparities. These harsher punishments are also shown in the higher rates of African Americans sentenced to
The criminal justice system is full of inequality and disparities among race, gender, and class. From policing neighborhoods, and the ongoing war on drugs, to sentencing, there are underlying biases and discriminatory practices in the criminal justice system that impacts minority communities and groups. Fueled by stereotypes and generalizations, it is important to identify and discuss what crimes take place and who actually makes it up.
Alexander does an incredible job of covering the issue of race in today’s criminal justice system. We discussed in class that it is a relatively difficult issue to discuss and a sore point of our country, but she recognized the need for it to be addressed from start to finish and really paints a picture of how racially biased the laws are and have been since the days of slavery. I think an important framework to discuss race and the causes and responses to crime is something that Alexander deems the new caste system. She argues that our new system is the rebirth of a redesigned caste system. In her introduction, she notes that “to put the matter starkly: the current system of control permanently locks a huge percentage of the African American community out of the mainstream society and economy. The system operates through our criminal justice institutions, but it functions more like a caste system than a system of crime control” (Alexander, 2012, p. 13)
White-collar crime is the financially motivated illegal acts that are committed by the middle and upper class through their legitimate business or government activities. This form of crime was first coined by Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as “a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.” (Linden, 2016). Crime has often been associated with the lower class due to economic reasons. However, Sutherland stressed that the Criminal Justice System needed to acknowledge illegal business activity as crime due to the repercussions they caused and the damage they can cause to society (Linden, 2016). Crime was prevalently thought to only be
Racism in American society plays a part in the manner in which the judicial system operates. The American prison population is larger than at any time in the history of the penal system in the world.” Nearly half of the more than two million Americans behind bars are African Americans. These statistics are well known and frequently cited by white and black Americans; for many they define Black humanity”. (Ryan D. King, 2010) Since the end of slavery African Americans were believed to be prone to crime and in general a menace to American Society and are to blame for this disparity. While this minority population has broken the law and deserve retribution they are ultimately products of their environment. In a study conducted as early as the late 20’s concerning minority crime. Thorsten Sellin’s research in “The Negro criminal”; a statistical note (Sellin, 1928) put it in perspective. “the stigmatization of crime as “black” and the masking of crime among whites as isolated failure, was a practice of discriminatory views by a majority white population. “The practice of linking crime to blacks, as a racial group, but not whites, he conclu...
For much of the twentieth century, punishment and crime have portrayed some of the most powerful signs of the racial divide in the United States. Marginalized and the poor remains the most biased against the criminal justice scheme (Barak, 2010). Throughout the Americas. racial minorities were tried in white courtrooms by white juries. Class and race are challenging.
Crime has always been a hot topic in sociology. There are many different reasons for people to commit criminal acts. There is no way to pinpoint the source of crime. I am going to show the relationship between race and crime. More specifically, I will be discussing the higher chances of minorities being involved in the criminal justice system than the majority population, discrimination, racial profiling and the environment criminals live in.
Reiman, Jeffrey. 2000. The Rich Gets Richer And the Poor Gets Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice. Washington, D.C: Allyn & Bacon.
Years after the United States civil rights movement, the removal of formal segregation laws, and implementation of anti-racist policies, the American criminal justice system still fails to display the same reform. As one of the largest superpowers and industrialized nations in the world, the United States has not attained a “post-racial status,” defined as being a society in which race, although it remains a concept, does not influence individuals. The failure of the United States to attain “post-racial status” is exemplified in the criminal justice system by overwhelming evidence of disproportionate levels of crime, arrests, and incarceration that primarily affect minority populations. Past and present patterns of American society dealing with crime and the people involved committing crime show extreme racial disparity in terms of individuals’ predisposed environments that increase ones likelihood of being involved in the criminal justice system, the system itself that processes individuals, the encouragement of mass incarceration by mainstream society, and the effects these processes have on society.
White collar crimes do not garner as much media attention as that of violent crimes (Trahan, Marquart, & Mullings 2005). This is an odd fact because white collar crimes cost society much more than violent crimes do (Messner & Rosenfeld 2007). While there are many different definitions for white collar crime, Schoepfer and Piquero describe it as a nonphysical crime that is used to either obtain goods or to prevent goods from being taken (2006). People who commit these crimes are looking for personal or some sort of organizational gain and are being pressured to be economically successful from the idea of the American dream. The authors suggest that there are two types of people who commit crimes, those who have an immense desire for control and those who fear losing all they have worked hard for (Schopfer & Piquero 2006). Both groups have different reasons for turning to crime, but both groups commit the crime to benefit themselves. It was found that higher levels of high school drop outs were directly correlated to levels of embezzlement in white collar crime (2006). Because they are drop outs, they are less likely to be successful legitimately and turn to crime more often than their graduate
1. Reiman explains that the idea that white collar crime is taken less seriously is because it protects the elite classes. For example, if the public believes they should fear the poor more than the rich, the rich can commit more crimes and go unnoticed because the population is focused on the poor Reiman explains that that the way crime is explained does not exactly fit what we think crime is. He explains that the notion that white-collar crime being harmless is based on the idea that white collar crimes do not end in injury or death is false because more people’s lives are put at risk than “lower class” crimes. Reinman thinks it is necessary to re- educate the public on white-collar crimes for economic
Crime and criminalization are dependent on social inequality Social inequality there are four major forms of inequality, class gender race and age, all of which influence crime. In looking at social classes and relationship to crime, studies have shown that citizens of the lower class are more likely to commit crimes of property and violence than upper-class citizens: who generally commit political and economic crimes. In 2007 the National Crime Victimization Survey showed that families with an income of $15000 or less had a greater chance of being victimized; recalling that lower classes commit a majority of those crimes. We can conclude that crime generally happens within classes.