Crime and Drugs in South Ozone Park
I’ve lived in South Ozone Park, Queens for three years and throughout those three years my family and I have overall good remarks. South Ozone Park used to be a predominant Italian neighborhood, but over the years a lot of Guyanese individuals have occupied residency here, so that’s mainly the type of people you see in this neighborhood. There are of course plenty of people from other backgrounds; the whole area of South Ozone Park is pretty diverse. Italians still live here, and so do some Hispanics like Dominicans and Cubans from what I’ve seen on my block, but there are surely others. In my block everyone gets along because we all know each other well. Most of the residents on my block (there are
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Mr. Family Man says if a new story comes out about the neighborhood that some kind of crime has occurred in the area everyone reacts in the same way, it’s unbelievable because things like that doesn’t really happen in the area of South Ozone Park. He mentions the story about the man being held captive in his basement (NYDailyNews.com) and how that’s such a rare occurrence. Overall, Mr. Family Man sides with Mr. College Student in his opinion that crime is not a major problem in the South Ozone Park area.
Interviewee 3, Mrs. Homemaker, another native of Guyana, is a mother of four, and has happily relocated to South Ozone Park three years ago. Now that she’s been living there she says she doesn’t have any major complaints. She loves the neighborhood and so does her family. All of the neighbors look out for one another, and that’s one of the things she says she looks for in a neighborhood. Mrs. Homemaker tells me she sees no change in the crime in the area. The most she sees are fights and arguments among teenagers and young adults. She says this is only likely to occur when the weather’s nice, because that’s when everyone heads to the park so there’s a lot of people walking to and from passing by in front of her house. She has never seen any gangs or any type of criminal related activity in the neighborhood neither. There was another news story
"Cocaine and crack are among the most addictive substances known to modern science, and they have already ruined the lives of millions of Americans" (Morganthau and Miller, 208). Cocaine and crack are both dangerous, harmful drugs. Though pleasurable effects can be obtained from these drugs, the use of crack and cocaine cannot be worth the actual consequences that are inflicted on mind and body. The bad effects of these drugs, by far outweigh the good. Because crack and cocaine are so closely related, it is important to have a firm understanding of both drugs.
Gangs of New York (2002), a bold and violent movie directed by Martin Scorsese takes us back to a New York without skyscrapers and modern-day lavishes that shows the rise of violent gang power and political corruption. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis, the film features a personal struggle placed within the context of gang warfare between Nativists and immigrants, which is set in the larger context of the Draft Riots and the Civil War. It is a reconstructed historical narrative that uses interlocking events filled with gang violence and political corruption to show how the modern New York was born.
City Heights East is divided by many different ethnicities. There is 54.3% Hispanic, 20.9% Asian, 15% Black, 7.3% White, 2.2% mixed, and 0.3% other. With this data we can see that there is is range of different ethnicities and not one fully overrides other. This is a diverse community with some great cultures throughout. With this comes crime. With a total of about 30 assaults in the past year, there needs to be a sense of community rather than a sense of territory. Within this sections it will review the cost of living, the employment rates, the school’s, and the community organization. These are all important when looking at a specific crime and how to improve it within the community.
Picture Manhattan in 1860, a time before the city had been dolled up and gotten ready for the silver screen, before the glamour and allure took over. Amsterdam Vallan (DiCaprio) is a young Irish man that migrates to the USA at a young age. Amsterdam’s story takes place in Five Points District of New York, a filthy and dangerous part of the city before it was deleted form history. As a young boy Vallan witnessed his father’s murder at the hand of William Cutting or Bill the Butcher (Day-Lewis) during one of their many gang wars. As Amsterdam’s story progresses along side The Butcher they become inseparable, but Amsterdam had ulterior motive. Ultimately, Amsterdam attempts to betray his new found ally in order to avenge his father’s death.
There are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz, tells a story about the family of LaJoe and Paul Rivers. The book focuses on Lafayette and Pharaoh, two of the younger children in the family, and their interactions with each other, the neighborhood, their family, their friends, and the police. Following the family over three years shows the importance of neighborhood factors when it comes to crime. According to Sampson and Groves (1989), social disorganization refers to “the inability of a community structure to realize the common values of its residents and maintain effective social controls”. Many aspects in the book exemplify how neighborhood factors, social controls, and community factors have impacts on crime. The book exemplifies how neighborhood disadvantage can lead to informal social controls, which in turn produces crime. Due to these factors, social disorganization is the best theory to explain the crime that occurs in There are No Children Here.
There are a lot of social problems in my community. The most current social issue is that Newark, NJ has laid off 167 police officials on November 30th of 2010. This was 14% of the police working for Newark. They were discharged from several precincts within Newark. Jen Chung from Gothamist stated "crime has increased there have been numerous carjacking’s—victims include a staffer in the NJ Attorney General's office and a Newark school principal—and shootings (since Thursday, four people have been shot dead and six have been wounded)." Since the layoff of police, residents have
Crime is something that happens every day. Many people fear it, but it is a factor that people cannot escape. In places, like Detroit, people are surrounded by violent crime. Either they are the victims of it, or the committers, but it was not always like this. During the sixties, Detroit was one of the most lucrative cities in the country. Many people moved there to seek jobs in the automotive factories which increased the population to 1.85 million. (Padnani, 2013) However, this is not the case now. Many of the factories have moved, putting people and their families at a disadvantage. A numerous amount of workers relied on these jobs to feed their families. Since then, Detroit has faced a significant amount of hardships that has caused the city to deteriorate effecting education, employment, and the crime rate each factor acts as a chain reaction. The lack of diversity in the city can be a factor of the crime rate as well because Detroit is filled with a large population of minorities. Many politicians have looked for ways to solve the problem, but nothing has been proven to work.
“You can hire half the poor to kill the other half.” Boss Tweed spoke these words in reference to the Draft Riots. It shows that you can easily turn the poor against each other, if you bring money into the situation. Gangs of New York is about the separation of the Irish and the Natives, which eventually led into larger conflicts. In this film there are two important characters, Amsterdam Vallon and Boyle McGloin, who were both Irishmen in the Five Points. Amsterdam was the son of Priest Vallon and he became a positive Irish Leader who was looked up to by many. Boyle McGloin was an Irishmen who was a Dead Rabbit, but later joined Bill “The Butcher” Cutting and became a “Native”. The character
There has long been a debate over which, if any, are the most effective methods of crime control. Governments from bottom to top in our nation have poured over the issue with mixed results for as long as there has been a nation. Until very recently deterrence was completely based on fear of punishment. However, recent years have provided us with a more complete understanding of crime and its roots among the more desirable parts of our society, specifically the mind of a criminal. Through the study of psychology, specifically free will, determinism and social identity, we may find that situational crime prevention is a better means to deter crime in our nation.
Different states in America have varying demographics when it comes to race, income, joblessness, and more, and states also vary when it comes to crime rates. The relationships between economic factors and crime rates are not direct, for example, Alaska has had the 3rd highest median house income but also has had some of the highest violent crime rates in the country. Being able to predict crime rates in a geographical area such as a state is important for public policy and law enforcement regarding making informed decisions. These decisions can help create efficient anti-crime policies. The United States of America was used as the geographical unit of study excluding Alaska, New Jersey, and Hawaii due to missing data. This paper examines which factors related to economics and demographics are linked to the crime rate. Inequality has been theorized to increase crime rates due to ecological factor of crime (Merton, 1938; Shaw & McKay, 1942; Becker, 1968). Certain factors including race are more prevalently associated with inequalities which is why they are included in the analysis.
Beginning with the late 1960’s counterculture in San Francisco, music and drugs will forever be inter-linked. Hippie bands such as the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers, and Phish are associated with marijuana, mushrooms, and LSD. Modern electronic “rave” , or club music is associated with MDMA or Ecstasy. When one thinks of rock and roll, sex and drugs immediately come to mind. While the use of drugs is not essential for the creation or performance of all new music, it was certainly in important factor for the counterculture music of the late 1960’s. While some of the most important and influential music was made with the help of psychoactive drugs, it was often to the detriment of the artist. Janis
Throughout U.S governmental history, policies have been known to affect the way of life and every aspect. The topic it choose to research is about “The War on Drugs”, the impact policies have on society and if it does help the public or tend to extent social inequality. This topic is very important to me in the sense that, I look at the community I live and see how drugs have affected people lifes, broken up families and also destroyed the community itself. I wanted to know if the “war on drugs” stop our neighborhood from being flooded with drugs or it just over shadow the real problems that needs to be tackled.
Philadelphia may have a crime problem. It was large enough in 2007 that former Mayor Michael Nutter made it a top priority for his campaign according to a New York Times article (Urbina 2007). The crime wave of 2007 drew a lot of attention from the media and stirred a lot of anxiety about the record-setting number of homicides, but perhaps more importantly it left people asking why the murder rate was so high and what the underlying causes were. In this article, I will not address all of the many variables that may factor into the crime spike in Philadelphia. I will focus on some of the social problems that may play a
On March 15, 2514 in New York City and New York City was desperate at this time because the city is in ruins. New York City has become a bad place over these last few centurys because of broken down buildings and crimes everywhere. One day two kidz were walking from a secret meeting and they walked in the shadows to avoid detection and when they were walking they tripped over a titanium cylinder. They dragged it into a dark allyway and they twisted it open and their flashlights revealed what was inside and they gasped with relief and their eyes filled with hope for the 1st time in years.
Many citizens have become annoyed with the crime in their neighborhoods. They have organized block watches, citizen patrols, along with neighborhood cleanups, and started harassing slumlords that allow drug dealers to use their properties. (Brown Art. 122). Among many of the crime fighting tools, the involvement of