Crime In Law Enforcement

Without a doubt, black men in the United States continue to be excessively “incarcerated, policed, and sentenced to death at significantly higher rates than their white counterparts (Kerby 2).” Portrayals in the media have depicted black men as thugs and common criminals; these negative stereotypes demoralize men of color and allow society to believe and internalize this destructive thinking. The racial disparities that exist in the criminal justice system are an indirect consequence of the portrayals of African American men that circulate in society. Because of racial disparities that occur in the United States it consequently threatens communities of color by “disenfranchising thousands by limiting voting rights and denying equal access to employment, housing, public benefits, and education to millions more (Kerby 2).”

The trend of African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 has seen a dramatic increase of incarceration. Attention has been focusing on areas of housing, education, and healthcare but the most prominent problem for African American males is the increase in the incarceration rate. African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 incarceration rate has been thought, by many, to be caused by economic factors such as under employment or unemployment, poor housing, lack of education, and lack of healthcare. Yet, others believe it is due to the imbalance of minorities within the criminal justice system, such as judges, lawyers, and lawmakers.

The past quarter century has seen an enormous growth in the American incarceration rate. Importantly, some scholars have suggested that the rate of prison growth has little to do with the theme of crime itself, but it is the end result of particular U.S. policy choices. Clear (2007) posits that "these policy choices have had well-defined implications for the way prison populations have come to replicate a concentrated occurrence among specified subgroups in the United States population in particular young black men from deprived communities" (p. 49).

Another common negative stereotype, establishes the African American male as intellectually inferior. Studies directed by psychologist Claude Stale, indicate that African American teenagers are aware that they are stigmatized as being intellectually inferior and the go to school bearing what psychologist Claude has called a “burden of suspicion” Such burden can affect their attitudes and achievements. These shadows hang over stigmatized people no matter their status or accomplishments. These stigmas have the potential to roll them of their individually and debilitate their attempts to break out of the stereotypical roles. Blacks are the repository for the American fear of crime. Ask anyone, of any race, to picture a criminal and the image will have a black face. The linked between blackness and criminality it’s routinized by terms such a “black-on-black crimes” or “black crimes”.

African-Americans are more likely than others to have social histories that include poverty, exposure to neighborhood violence, and exposure to crime-prone role models. For example, African-American children with no prior admissions to the juvenile justice system were six times more likely to be incarcerated in a public facility than white children with the same background that were charged with the same offense. A major study sponsored by the Department of Justice in the early 1980s noted that juvenile justice system processing appears to be counterproductive, placing minority children at a disproportionately greater risk of subsequent incarceration (Deadly Statistics: A Survey of Crime and Punishment, 2000). This writer?s grandmother retired after more than thirty years as a welfare social worker for Los Angeles County. She has stated on more than occasion that the government is the main reason that most black men are in jail awaiting the death penalty today. In the sixties and early seventies, she says that women on welfare were not allowed to have men in the home, even the father of the children. These fatherless generations of men seem more prone to crime,

As reported by the U.S. Justice Department, there has been significant increase in incarcerated African American males, in comparison to Hispanic and White males. It is believed that social interaction, area of residency, and social networks have major influence on the increasing crime and incarceration rates of African American males. A larger portion of White males hold more positions within the U.S. Judicial system than African American males who make up a larger population of prison inmates and less involvement in legislation. This coincides with data suggesting that African American’s have lower percentages of receiving or obtaining higher education, placing them in areas of low-income and less opportunities. Social inequality in the judicial system is questioned as well as demographics and economics will be researched in order to provide in depth analysis of these national percentages of African Americans. Additional research is conducted to investigate circumstances once an African American male enters the criminal judicial system, and a generational cycle of crime. There is more knowledge and potential opportunities within the prison system versus the lack of resources these prisoners would feel they would have upon their release.

Disparities of race, class, gender, and age have produced extraordinary rates of incarceration among young African American men with little schooling. Radical changes in crime control and sentencing polices led to an unprecedented buildup of the United States prison population over the last thirty years. African Americans comprise a disproportionate percentage of the individuals imprisoned in State correctional institutions across the United States. . There are 5 main reasons as to why African Americans repeatedly go to prison. These reasons are racial discrimination, the war on drugs, traffic stops, unemployment, and wage trajectory.

African Americans have been associated with crime for many years, and because of that, the stigma follows them everywhere. There are plenty of neighborhoods with a lot of African Americans that have high crime rates, but these neighborhoods also have “pronounced levels of socioeconomic disadvantages”(Laurence 1). It is argued that African American neighborhoods have the “highest average levels of disadvantaged social conditions owing to the role of race in structuring opportunity and community access"(Krivo and Peterson qtd. in Laurence). Some researchers focus on this point, while others find that although these neighborhoods are more disadvantaged, there may be other reasons for high crime rate in the

In today’s society, the state of mind that African American males is constructed upon is troubling. It is not a frame of mind that develops overnight, it starts developing at a young age and manifests into adulthood. Many of these African American males that have developed this mentality “were abused as children, dropped out of school, lived in poverty, abused drugs, and served in many juvenile jails and prison sentences (Austin & Irwin, 2012).” Unfortunately, the environmental factors have dictated the lives of young black men instead of using it as a source of empowerment like women. They rather life the “ fast life” that involves them joining in gangs, selling illegal narcotics, and engaging in various types of property crimes just to

In his pointed analysis of urban life in the United States, sociologist Elijah Anderson (2013) posits that public awareness in America is fundamentally color-coded in that white skin is commonly associated with trustworthiness and civility while black skin tends to epitomize crime and incivility. In a country where more than a third of black men in their twenties are under state control at any given time, official criminality is not only attached to individual offenders but also to an entire social group (Pettit & Western, 2004; Roberts, 2004). For poor, undereducated black men, who represent the fastest growing segment of the nation’s prison population, incarceration is a common and almost predictable life experience (Roberts, 2004). It is our hypothesis that by effectively eroding several critical keystones of normative functioning, discriminatory policing and imprisonment creates a cyclical pathway for black men to return to the criminal justice system. This chapter reviews and evaluates the existing research on the long-term consequences of incarceration on African American men, focusing specifically on a) economic opportunities and mobility, b) social networks and connections, and c) civic and social citizenship.

In the Moynihan Report, Moynihan talks about racism and discrimination and how that comes into play with African American youth. He identified that there are five factors in a home environment that made a difference in whether boys would become delinquents: discipline of boy by father, supervision of boy by mother, affection of father for boy, affection of mother for boy, and cohesiveness of family (U.S. Department of Labor, 1965). Nowadays, more African Americans men have been leaving their homes or have been incarcerated leaving the women alone with the child(ren) and with a lesser chance of getting married. Incarcerated men are away from their home for years at a time and this disturbs the family’s routine that have been set in place. As Moynihan mentions in his report, the youth, especially males, could be affected by this sudden change (U.S. Department of Labor, 1965). The child no longer has those five factors in a home environment to make a difference in his live. In the United States, 5 percent of all African American men are incarcerated, compared to less than 1 percent (0.5 percent) of their white counterparts. African American men are ten times more likely to be incarcerated than white men (Hattery and Smith, 2012: 120). With incarceration increasing within the black community, leaving the family with one or no income, this is a factor as to the incline of single mothers and could also be another factor as to the increase in poverty among the black

The most significant statistics about arrest rates in the United States is that there are more men arrested than women in all fifty states. The next thing that is noticeably significant is that most arrests are young African American men, generally under the age of 25. According to Foster (2006) “several reasons have been advanced for age-crime patterns, including: 1) differential access to legitimate or illegitimate opportunity structures at various ages; differences in social factors such as peer influences. 2) Physiological factors such as the effects of aging on strength, speed, and aggression. 3) Building up deviant networks that make it possible for people such as fences to commit less-visible crimes. 4) He is predominantly urban. The idea that crime needs illegitimate opportunity structures and deviant networks implies that it is facilitated by an urban environment. In the USA, blacks are arrested for index crimes at a rate nearly two-and-a-half times that of their percentage in the national population. In 2001, with blacks representing 12.8 percent of the nation’s population, they made up 30.7 percent of index crimes. ” The majority of individuals arrested was unemployed or make less than $10,000 yearly. According to Foster (2006) In the USA about one-third of jail and prison inmates were unemployed prior to being arrested, a rate considerably higher than that of adults in the general population. Among inmates in 1996 more than half were not

This paper will provide a closer look on two of these specific issues, poverty and the changing family structure (i.e. the absence of fathers) of black families in households. These topics are two of the major influences on African American families today and usually go hand in hand. Children and adults living in single parent households are significantly more likely to live in poverty than those living in two-parent households (Hattery and Smith, 2007). One person doesn’t suffer from poverty or crime alone. Brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, victims and friends all become involved one way or the other. A chain reaction starts to occur and the families get pulled into the situation whether they want to or not and end up paying the price as well.

Children can be influenced by their peers who are already engaged in drug peddling, to join in the venture. Hirschi (1969) illustrates how an individual can be influenced by peer pressure to commit crimes such as selling drugs to fit in the society. This form of negative direct control by peers is prevalent and is the easiest way of perpetuating the vice (Shaw 127). Parents, on the other hand, can help their children to evade indulging in the sale of drugs by setting up a good

Criminology itself is the systematic study of the nature, extent, etiology and control of lawbreaking behavior. The core components revealed in this course are definitions of crime in nature as harm causing behavior, the descriptions and classifications of criminals, the analysis of crime, profiles of everyday victims and offenses, and the origin of crime. The field of probation relies heavily on these components in order to understand and properly categorize offenders, stay aware of offender’s mental and emotional status, and attempt to predict the future of criminal offenders. The various theories presented in Criminology 262 help shape the Dallas County Adult Probation Department and serve as model types used to minimize the risks associated with sentencing alternatives. The agency assesses the same theoretical categories provided by Criminology 262 such as sociological, biological, and psychological explanations of crime in an attempt to better deal with offenders. The internship experience has supported the previous notion installed through Criminology 262 that one single theory cannot explain crime. The combination of each theory and perspective enabled an opinion of individuality to form. In opposition to the core components embedded in the course, the personally constructed opinion that criminal offenders cannot be categorized and must exist on individual levels was formed from the internship experience. The Dallas County Adult Probation