Neoliberal Government

After recounting the crime he had done in the past out of boredom, a component of strain theory, King explains the reasoning for poor people acting out and doing crime that keeps them in poverty, saying that, “Yes! Black subjects, stripped… degraded… deprived… demoralized… and psychotic-minded must attempt to prove their worth and their manhood, even at the expense of others” (2009, pp. 52-53). What King means by this is that it’s the environment that makes one do what one does, and the people to blame are those in power that perpetuate such conditions. The poor are not, for the most part, who they are just because they are ‘lazy and stupid,’ but more so because there is just nothing there for them. Believing in ‘survival of the fittest’ when working at a desk job may make you feel good about yourself, but there are others who want a chance at the same opportunity as you have had. These people are just like anyone else we know. There hard workers and want to provide for their families, but are held back by the society they live in to further progress, which is ironic in the face of the American

Glen Loury argues in his essay called “A Nation of Jailer” that the United States is a nation that follows a society that has been affected by racial bias. Loury claims that the people who are targeted by law are racial discriminated. Loury mainly talks about the “poorly educated black and Hispanic men who reside in large numbers in our great urban centers.” (1) Loury has made a clear and strong point. Loury shows his points in three main ways. Loury emphasizes his points by using ethos, logos, and pathos. Loury uses many well-known characters in his writing, and Loury uses strong phrases that impact the reader emotionally and questions to make sure the reader has some sort of connection to Loury’s evidence. Furthermore, Loury gives a lot

The welfare system has been controversial throughout U.S. history. It is constantly under attack and is often the chosen topic of political debates. In 2015, 35.4% of Americans were on welfare (Boyd). Welfare is a government ran program, where the government gives benefits to people who cannot afford to take care of themselves or their family (“Brief”). The benefits that the government gives to the people are money and the necessities they need to live a normal life (“Welfare” 825). The welfare system is an interesting topic and has many layers. Although it is necessary, at the same time it is frustrating for many politicians and U.S. citizens. Numerous people abuse the welfare system everyday. People have found many ways to take

The purpose of this study is to expose the process of mass incarceration of poor black males, and females increasingly, within the context of a fabricated war on drugs which really is serving to keep the prison population booming by exploiting traditionally disadvantaged minorities in society. Alexander rightfully calls this a ?redesign? of the old racial caste system in America which was supposed to have been destroyed by the civil rights movement. The war on drugs in the 80s merely became the newest vehicle by which to exploit the black community in this country. The War on Drugs is really the rationale for racial control, which targets black men and women and relegates millions of citizens to what Alexander calls a ?second class status (Alexander, 2012).?

For my analysis, I decided to read the 2006 book Punishment and Inequality in America by author Bruce Western. The book takes a look into the relationship among crime, incarceration, and inequality and what really connects them together. Western shows that although there was a decrease in crime rates about 20 years ago, the reason behind this decrease is not what it may seem and that the decrease may of even come at a significant cost to those effected by the prison boom. Through my analysis, I hope to explore and convey what Western has claimed and examine if his arguments hold truth or not in dealing with our prison systems. On top of this, I will attempt to connect a few theories we as a class have learned about throughout the semester to what Western has has claimed in his book.

Mass incarceration became a public policy issue in the United States in the 2000s. Now in 2016, there are still many questions about America’s incarceration rate, 698 prisoners per 100,000 people, which is only surpassed by Seychelle’s at 868 for every 100,000. They concern the phenomenon’s beginning, purpose, development, and essentially resolution. In her book published this year, assistant professor of history and African and African-American studies at Harvard Elizabeth Hinton challenges popular belief that mass incarceration originated from Reagan’s War on Drugs. Mass incarceration’s function as a modern racial caste system is discussed in a 2010 book by Michelle Alexander, an associate professor of law at Ohio State University, civil

I concur with the aforementioned summary by Alexander regarding slavery, Jim Crow and Mass incarceration. Since the beginning of this class and discussions, it has become clearer to all that minorities are disproportionately represented in our prisons. A closer look at the current criminal justice system will reveal that mass incarceration has become an institution playing a critical but subtle role in channeling class conflict in the neoliberal social stratification.

In “Modern Slavery,” PoliticalArticles (2011) notes that, in contemporary American society, more African-Americans are imprisoned today than were held as slaves prior to emancipation. In examining this phenomenon through the theoretical lens provided by Conflict Theory, the essay argues that imprisonment has come to represent a new “Jim Crow” in which poor urban African-Americans are now disproportionately incarcerated on the basis of the “War on Drugs.” Arguing that this structure is itself unjust, the essay thus by argues that the disproportionate focus on incarceration which prevails within this war is highly problematic as it pertains to social justice for the Black community. Concluding, it examines the draught of opportunities available to African-American minorities within American cities, via an overview of urban sociology, and proposes that macro level dynamics pertaining to the nature of the city are perpetuating the racialist implications of the War on Drugs.

Angela Y. Davis, the author of Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex, shows how private organizations benefit from the incarceration of expanding quantities of people of color. Davis argues that in spite of the fact that the jail blast has expanded the benefits of worldwide partnerships, it “devours the social wealth” of our groups by depleting them of their human and monetary assets. Davis thesis is where she states that the political economy of detainment facilities depends on racialized presumptions of criminality. The cycle continues of the racist laws which follows into racist prison system which then follows to racist policing practices. The prison industrial system materially and morally ruins its occupants and

In this chapter, Wacquant discusses how the penal system, which is a way for the wealthier classes to control the delinquent subproleteriat who have become dependent on welfare assistance, has expanded drastically through an increase in budgets, construction of prisons, and an increase in personnel. While the costs to incarcerate an individual greatly outweigh the costs of welfare programs, there are three myths—that the criminal justice system has thus failed because it is not tough on crime, that repression works, and that incarceration is less expensive than welfare overall—perpetuated by neoconservative groups that garnish support for penality. As citizens refused to fund the new penal policy, the state resorted to several other strategies,

Over the last four decades Neoliberal policies have generated issues such as social inequalities, discrimination, and an increase in poverty, that have affected the lives of many individuals on a global scale. These repercussions were the result of a Neoliberal agenda that aimed to maintain economic growth with social reproduction. After World War II, a welfare state was established which contributed to the growth of the GDP in the United States until the economic recession in the 1970’s. In response to the economic crisis in the 20th century, Neoliberal elites aimed to stimulate economic growth by limiting welfare and lowering labor costs which increased poverty, precipitated discrimination towards people of color, and created an unfair justice

Thompson’s essay discusses the social, economic, political impact postwar in the American society. Thompson provides a detailed account of the urban crisis, which African Americans living in the urban area were the targets of police policing, such as the offender during the war on drugs. In the meantime, there was a decline in the American labor movement. The incarceration rate went up and many, especially minorities became prisoners and were subject to do labor. Similarly, in Chase’s article, he mentions the increasing number of people put in prison because of the war on drugs in the 1970s and 80s. He also listed numbers of court cases to demonstrate that minorities, especially African Americans sought for justice when they were unjustly incarcerated

‘Neo liberalism is responsible for most of the global economic problems we are experiencing today’

promoted a half way approach to liberal ideas while they incorporated parts of a social

(B. Kamiński 225). However, the package was met with a flurry of criticism from prominent economists and journalists. Echoing the key principles of neoliberalism, the economist Tomasz Jeziorański argued that the principal weakness of the package consisted in granting the full responsibility for economic performance to the central administration. The free enterprise characterized by responsibility and autonomy, he insisted, was incompatible with economic coercion by the state (B. Kamiński 226). As a consequence of protests of similar nature, the government eventually withdrew the package in question from further consideration.