Before spelling out who or what is to blame for the crimes of Primo and Caesar in Philippe Bourgois’ In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio, it is important to acknowledge that explanation is not exoneration. Primo and Caesar engage in violence and break the law. At the most immediate level, Primo and Caesar are responsible for their actions. But if we are only to see Primo and Caesar as solely responsible for their crimes, we are left with a limited range of options in terms of social policy for dealing with the types of crimes committed by men like Primo and Caesar in inner-city neighborhoods. If by “blaming” we are looking for a set of causes of Primo and Caesar’s crimes, then we can come to see a multitude of causes inner-city problems, and shape public policies accordingly. Bourgois’ ethnography tries to look at both agency and structure, both free will and social constraints, and he does so by looking at the crimes and violence of men like Primo and Caesar in the macro context of political economy, or structurally, all the way down to individual choices, or how these men exercise their agency within the constraints they confront. What is fascinating about this portrayal of violence is how it incorporates culture for understanding the practices of selling crack in the social world of el barrio. Bourgois does not want to play “blame the victim,” does not want to present his readers with a “pornography of violence,” but also does not want to reduce the crimes of these men economic explanations. Relying on culture, then, helps him to avoid these possible problems when studying street culture.
The crime and violence are very real. This cannot be denied. For example, Primo’s deep involvement in the crack house trade (Bo...
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...spects of the problem, but Bourgois is also adamant throughout the book that he wants to examine the ways structure and culture interact. In some ways, they can help offset the deficits in dignity that may propel young, poorer men to turn to violence and crime as badges of honor. But I scratch my head thinking about programs that may more directly fill the need on these guy’s part to be seen as men, real men, given that their gender ideologies seem so foreign and I can not see government, like smaller community based organizations have, provide programs that get into the nitty gritty of people’s lives. Perhaps government can better fund the private programs that do. Still, taking the structural pressure off with big programs should also take the cultural pressure off young men to act out in violence, at least to some degree, which is more significant than no degree.
Bourgois, Philippe. “Crack in Spanish Harlem: Culture and Economy in the Inner City.” Anthropology Today 5, no. 4 (1989): 6-11.
His view on the world is based upon his own research and statistics that he deduces from said research. He takes the information that he finds and presents in to the audience so that they can understand it. This book analyzes many different issues and draws conclusions based off of the information Levitt found by doing intensive research of the statistics surrounding the issues of cheaters, the power of information, the importance of drugs and gangs to the economy, how abortion affects crime rates and the effects of parenting on their children and how it determines who they become. Levitt appeals to logos often when presenting information, he interprets statistics he finds from his research to back up his statements in order to make a well rounded argument. One of the things Levitt notes is that drug dealers make less than minimum wage. He then questions why gang members who sell drugs still live with their mothers. The answer is that they get payed less than the lowest paying legal jobs. To make large amounts of money in gang work, a member have to be near the top the same way that capitalist economy works. The higher up the ladder a member is the higher their yearly income is. Levitt comes to the conclusion that gangs are an essential part of the economy. He correlates the amount of people employed to stop gangs or help people get out of gang life, and comes to the conclusion that a
Living in poverty brings high tensions and people tend to lose it. The use of alcohol is a contributor of the excess violence in the favelas. Many men and women begin to fight about the littlest thing, but it expands to a large issue as a result of the alcohol. Carolina recounts whenever a fight breaks out, “I was giving lunch when Vera came to tell me there was a fight in the favela” (de Jesus 63). These incredibly common vicious fights are entertainments to people living in the favelas. It is so familiar that whenever a fight breaks out people just enjoy it as if it were a show. As Carolina being the great hero she is, she regularly breaks up the
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.
For this assignment I decided to read the book Code of the Street: decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city by Elijah Anderson. This book is about how inner city people live and try and survive by living with the code of the streets. The code of the streets is basically morals and values that these people have. Most of the time it is the way they need to act to survive. Continuing on within this book review I am going to discuss the main points and arguments that Anderson portrays within the book. The main points that the book has, goes along with the chapters. These points consist of Street and decent families, respect, drugs violence, street crime, decent daddy, the mating game, black inner city grandmother. Now within these points there are a few main arguments that I would like to point out. The first argument is the belief that you will need to accept the street code to get through life. The other one is the belief that people on the street need “juice”. For the rest of this paper we will be looking at each one of main points and arguments by going through each chapter and discussing it.
Over the past 60 years there has been a recent phenomenon in the development and rise of gangs and gang violence. This is exceptionally apparent in South Central Los Angeles where the Bloods and the Crips have taken control of the social structure and created a new type of counter culture. Poverty in this area is an enormous problem caused by a shear lack of jobs; but just because there is a lack of jobs doesn’t mean that there will be a lack of bills to pay, so sometimes selling drugs in order to keep a roof over your head seems like the most logical option. Crime often times flourishes in these regions because the inconvenient truth is; crime pays. Senator Tom Hayden stated “It’s been defined as a crime problem and a gang problem but it’s really an issue of no work and dysfunctional schools.” this statement is in fact true, but with an exception it is a more broad issue than just involving school, and lack of jobs but goes beyond into social structure as a whole and more specifically the judicial system, this can all be supported by three sociologists Chambliss, Anderson, and Durkheim.
He did not have the luxury of being open-minded and carefree, he was constantly on guard twenty-four-seven. Succeeding in school was important to young Coates because had he failed in school he would have been forced out on the streets, where he would have had to work even harder to protect his body. According to Coates, drug dealers used violence and power as a means to disguise the fear of losing their bodies to the streets. Bell Hooks speaks of these same men in her essay Gangster Culture. Men in prison are viewed as superior because they are using the power to mask the fear of losing their bodies during a period of incarceration. Although every person who is currently incarcerated in America does not come from the ghetto they are still placed in an environment where their bodies have to be protected on a consistent basis. Coates says, “In America I was part of an equation- even if it wasn’t a part I relished. I was the one police stopped in the middle of a workday.” (p.124) Even as he grew older, Ta-Nehisi Coates still had to protect his body. His fears no longer included just the local gangbangers, he had to worry about protecting himself from the police as well. Coates then writes, “Your mother had to teach me how to love you-how to kiss you and tell you I love you every night. Even now, it does not feel like a ritual. And this is because I am wounded.”
In the book Punished by Victor Rios, he presents the argument that the consistent labeling by every state run institution that cast young Latinos as criminals or cast “at risk youth” expected to commit crimes is symptomatic of the social structures that creature the criminalization process of young Latinos. Non-state institutions as well as parents, who often seek help from them, are often advised to become policing agents at the encouragement of the authorities, hence becoming part of what Rios calls the “Youth Control Complex” that focuses solely on punitive measures. Parents often feel compelled to obey the dominate discourse provided by the youth control complex which sends the message, “Your child is a deviant, your child needs to be scrutinized and policed, and when your child acts negatively in any kind of way, such as dressing like a ‘thug,’ you need to call probation and police.” (Rios , p. 83) Labeling such as this creates over policing which in turn creates a symbolic violence in the criminalized youth.
For my final paper I choose to sociologically analyze the book Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh. Newsweek describes Gang Leader for a Day as being “Compelling…dramatic…Venkatesh gives readers a window into a way of life that few Americans understand.” (Newsweek) Gang Leader for a Day tells the story of a young sociologist named Sudir Venkatesh and his search for answers to poverty problems in the urban projects. After being constantly warned of which areas not to visit, Venkatesh decided to ignore all the forewarnings and goes and walks into Lake Park Projects, to conduct surveys for his professor. On his trip into the projects Venkatesh ends up meeting a gang leader named J.T. After spending the night in the projects Venkatesh is allowed to leave after J.T. states “You shouldn’t go around asking them silly-a** questions —- With people like us, you should hang out, get to know what they do, how they do it. No one is going to answer questions like that .You need to understand how young people live on the streets.” (2008 : 21) From that day on Venkatesh would come to end up befriending J.T and spending almost all of his time in the projects. It isn’t until J.T gets relocated to the notorious Robert Taylor Housing that the real study begins. Over the next seven years Venkatesh would not only gather information from J.T but, also befriend everyone from the other neighborhood dealers, crackheads, squatters, prostitutes, pimps, activists, cops, organizers, and officials. Through his time spent with the residents and officials of the Robert Taylor Homes Venkatesh not only was able to gain insight on the day to day life of...
In “ Code of the Streets,” by Elijah Anderson, we analyze how in poor inner-cities, many residents feel the need to wear a mask to portray this power, honor, and anger that many use to keep others away so that they will not be messed with. Because those who live in urban communities are not allowed to interact with the upper and middle class, “the inclination to violence springs from the circumstances of life among the ghetto poor- the lack of jobs that pay a living wage, the stigma of race, the fallout from ramping drug use and drug trafficking, and the resulting alienation and lack of hope for the future.” (Anderson 1). Survival in cities like Baltimore is very uncommon, because of poor living conditions and the lack of resources that enforce help, such as the police department. With no protection around, many feel the need to use violent behaviors to avoid being messed with and like Anderson quotes “the trophy does not have to be material. It can be another person’s sense of honor, snatched away with a derogatory remark” (12). Many Latinos and African American in urban communities turn to street fighting for the exchange of money or participate in the beatings of others to give one a sense of power that makes him or she feel more superior than their surroundings. Some hide their true identity by
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
The documentary Crips and Bloods: Made in America, can be analyzed through three works: “Modern Theories of Criminality” by C.B. de Quirόs, “Broken Windows” by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling and “Social Structure and Anomie” by Robert K. Merton.
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
Throughout the article “The Code of the Streets,” Elijah Anderson explains the differences between “decent” and “street” people that can be applied to the approaches of social control, labeling, and social conflict theories when talking about the violence among inner cities due to cultural adaptations.
In the 1970’s Patricia Adler and her husband infiltrated a large drug smuggling and dealing ring located in Southwest County of southern California with the intent of learning more about the covert group. In Adler’s book Wheeling and Dealing: an Ethnography of an Upper-Level Drug Dealing and Smuggling Community, she delves into the multifaceted lifestyle and activities of those in the Southwest County drug world. In this paper, I will look into the factors that initiated their entry into the drug world, their activates that facilitated their smuggling and dealing of drugs, and their exit from the drug world, while applying multiple theories to explain their illegal behavior.