Crime and Society: False Consciousness and the Carnival Mirror

630 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Racial discrimination in the police force

Crime and Society

The term false consciousness provides contributes to the understanding that there are economic biases, ideological processes and social inequalities within the criminal justice system and the scale is tipped in favour of the wealthy (White, Haines, & Eisler, 2008, p. 111). The ruling elite pass laws which focus on a select population which are believed to be responsible for damaging crimes. Law enforcement is responsible for upholding the laws without questioning their bias nature as well as not allocating enough resources to the investigation of white collar crime. The media also plays a significant role in the distorted view of crimes that harm society by reporting on violence rather than corporate crimes. False consciousness is the concept of the working class being ignorant of their exploitation by the capitalist system which is created by legislators, law enforcement and the media.

Laws created by the elite ruling class contribute to the unbalanced view on crime. The laws created do not simply reflect the reality of crime; rather the laws help to shape the reality that we see. It is the responsibility of politicians to define criminal acts and prohibit dangers that minimize public safety (Reiman & Paul, 2010, p. 60). Legislation is created by a select group of powerful individuals that overlook the severely disadvantaged. The overrepresentation of young, black, males from urban centers within the justice system is due to laws created which target them as opposed to the old, white, males with wealth that engages in white-collar crime (Reiman & Paul, 2010, pp. 60-61). In the same manner that a carnival mirror distorts an individual’s appearance, legislators also magnify certain criminal behaviours, worki...

... middle of paper ...

...se responsible for the creation of law and the enforcement of said laws are contributing to the carnival mirror by targeting young, black, males from urban centers in particular. A focus on street crimes over white collar crimes is a discriminatory practice by the capitalist system. Corporate crimes create societal damages but are often not recognised since resources are allocate to the fight against crimes committed by the lower classes. By allowing the system to continue operating in this capitalist fashion, false consciousness continues and the working class suffers.

Works Cited

Reiman, J., & Paul, L. (2010). The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, class, and criminal justice (9th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

White, R., Haines, F., & Eisler, L. (2008). Crime & criminology: An introduction. Don Mills, Ontario, Canada: Oxford University Press.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Prison

    1347 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison by Jeffrey Reiman

    1255 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...izing drugs or reducing the number of guns in circulation, but clearly each of these ideas has massive opposition waiting to stop any such effort. Reiman's concept of social justice is more in keeping with sociological theories that find systemic reasons for crime, which is quite different from the prevailing individual actor theories that are so embedded in the system. Reiman is less convincing in the way he describes the system as intentionally bias, for he makes it sound as if it were an organized conspiracy. That is simply not the case. The book is provocative and has many good ideas, including a thorough analysis of the current criminal justice system and how that system may b changed to better represent, serve, and protect ALL Americans.

    Read More

  • Mass Incarceration as a Modern Racial Caste System

    1886 Words  | 4 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Justice System

    4767 Words  | 10 Pages

    These authors’ arguments are both well-articulated and comprehensive, addressing virtually every pertinent concept in the issue of explaining racially disparate arrest rates. In The Myth of a Racist Criminal Justice System, Wilbanks insists that racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is a fabrication, explaining the over-representation of African Americans in arrest numbers simply through higher incidence of crime. Walker, Spohn and DeLone’s The Color of Justice dissents that not only are African Americans not anywhere near the disproportionate level of crime that police statistics would indicate, they are also arrested more because they are policed discriminately. Walker, Spohn and DeLone addi...

    Read More

  • Criminal Justice Myths and Facts

    1352 Words  | 3 Pages

    The social construction of myths of crime and criminal justice seems to follow a series of recurrent patterns. These patterns allow for an unprecedented amount of social attention to be focused upon a few isolated criminal events or issues. This attention is promoted by intense, but often brief, mass media coverage of a select problem. Intense social concern of an issue is achieved by a variety of means from the mass media, government, law enforcement officials, interpersonal communications, and the interests of reform groups whom all play major roles in focusing the publics attention on select so...

    Read More

  • Examples Of Racial Disparity In The Criminal Justice System

    1236 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Racial Inequalities in the Justice System

    1738 Words  | 4 Pages

    New Century Foundation. (2005). The Color of Crime: Race, Crime and Justice in America. Retrieved from http://www.colorofcrime.com/colorofcrime2005.pdf

    Read More

  • Racial Disparities In Criminal Justice Essay

    1155 Words  | 3 Pages

    Crime is not a homogenous action. Criminals hail from a hodgepodge of backgrounds, socioeconomic classes, and demographics. Patterns, however, have been observed across the spectrum of offenders that predict those most likely to become culprits. These patterns often come in the form of disparities between social, racial, and gender groups. The racial, socioeconomic, and gender disparities inherent in the United States criminal justice system are particularly manifested in the courts, policing methods, and prisons. Examining the policies of foreign countries’ criminal justice systems can paint a picture of reform that spells an end to unequal treatment of America’s delinquents.

    Read More

  • The Impact Of The Politicization Of Criminal Justice

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    Some of the most important historical developments that Beckett (1997) attributed to the politicization of criminal justice practices and policies were beginning with the civil rights movement. There was a tremendous amount of discourse occurring during this time about whether or not African Americans should have the same rights as whites. As well as, the thought that many African Americans were responsible for the increase in crime. Therefore, in the political sector we saw a power struggle between the Democrats and the Republicans. The Republicans wanted to portray the issues that crime and drug use were increasing rapidly due to the way the African Americans were raised.

    Read More

  • Poverty and Crime in America

    3673 Words  | 8 Pages

    Peterson, R, Krivo, L, & Hagan, J. (2006). The many colors of crime. NY: New York University Press.

    Read More

  • Racial Segregation

    569 Words  | 2 Pages

    Walker, Samuel, Cassia Spohn, and Miriam DeLone. The Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in America. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2007. Print.

    Read More

  • Public Criminology

    3279 Words  | 7 Pages

    Conscious efforts to critique existing approaches to questions of crime and justice, demystify concepts and issues that are laden with political and ideological baggage, situate debates about crime control within a socio-historical context, and facilitate the imagination and exploration of alternative ways of thinking and acting in relation to crime and justice. (p. 3).

    Read More

  • Public Order and Drug Crimes

    1306 Words  | 3 Pages

    ..., Larry J. (2006). Criminology: Theories, Patterns, & Typologies, 9th edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. ISBN 0-495-00572-X. Print. 25 Feb 2014.

    Read More

  • Which Trait Theory Most Explains Criminal Behavior

    1238 Words  | 3 Pages

    Winslow, R. W., & Zhang, S. (2008). Contemporary Theories of Crime. Criminology: a global perspective (). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

    Read More

  • Essay On Criminal Justice

    3249 Words  | 7 Pages

    Today, a vicious cycle of poverty, criminality, and incarceration traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities. And many aspects of our criminal justice system may actually exacerbate these problems, rather than alleviate them.

    Read More

More about Crime and Society: False Consciousness and the Carnival Mirror

Open Document