Hypercriminalization Essay

All throughout history each culture or social group has unique norms that are acceptable to that particular group of people. For this reason, to understand and accept these different norms, each social group develops their own customs and practices and go with those who accept them, oppose to those who hypercriminalizing them. Hypercriminalization is the disapproval of a person or group that distinguishes them from other members of society. In other words, youth in Oakland are disapproved from the criminal justice enforcement and education system because they do not fit the required social norms that are given in society. Even so when they are non-delinquent individuals, they are still criminalized. Many adolescents in Oakland, CA have at one

Youths are hypercriminalized due to their everyday behaviors and the process by which individuals come to feel stigmatized. A sense of feeling excluded from society which then leads them to join gangs to feel part of a group or feel protected from a group.

Hypercriminalization creates conditions in which young people actually seek more predictable, albeit more restrictive, forms of punishment. Many of the boys talked about liking the structure of incarceration because it dictated a clear set of rules. In the community, police, probation offices, schools, businesses, and families were perceived as unpredictable: youths reported frustration with not knowing when their teaches, parents, or police would criminalize them. (Rios 2011:

A path that will only get them into greater trouble with the law enforcement. Once again Jose is an example of how he dreams big, enough to dream to move out far way and become rich enough to make his mothers dreams true. With those dreams he chose to sacrifice himself by becoming a drug dealer, to make his dreams come true. No doubt this what most Latinos and Black young men, they choose to make ends met illegally, to give their family what they never had, or simply for protection, protection that they will have from the street gangsters. Oppose to law enforcement that simply do not understand the struggle to not be accepted and always be hypercriminalized due to their self image, behavior, or who they interact with. They are able to be who they want to be. The big picture is that it’s all what those youngsters have always been surrounded by. All the violence, gangs, drugs, and the baggy pants. They had to live up to what was around them to avoid being stigmatized by their peers and others. Therefore, they choose to make the decision to join such groups as the