Review Of Policing The Lives Of Black And Latino Boys By Victor M. Rios

“It’s a war going on. The ghetto is a cage. They only give you two choices, be a rebel or a slave” Dead Prez, ‘Turn off the Radio’, 2002. It’s an epidemic that’s happening in major cities across America; racialized black and latino youth are pipelined directly into the criminal justice system through different institutions starting at a young age. These boys are marked for illegitimate gang activity at an early age, initiating the ongoing process where they are stigmatized in every aspect of their life for their negative credentials before they even have the opportunity to prove themselves. Victor Rios, author of Punished, names this phenomenon the Youth Control Complex and shadows several youth in the Oakland area, in hopes of bringing light to these injustices. Rios, having grown up in the ghetto himself, knows firsthand what it takes to escape this inevitable incarceration; mentorship from adults who care and opportunity fueled by the individual. The Youth Control Complex effectively criminalizes these boys at a young age, however through the sociological imagination one can see that the conditions are part of larger structural and societal processes.

The book Human Targets: Schools, Police, and the Criminalization of Latino Youth by Victor Rios explains his five year research specifically on Latino males ages fifteen to twenty-one, involved in gangs in Southern California. He, just like few of the young men he interviewed had a substandard start, but later mentors came into their lives that gave them a good impact. Also, the physical features influence how young Latino men are seen and they are often seen as human targets to authorities of white decent. "To be a human target is to be victimized and considered an enemy by others; it is to be viewed as a threat by law enforcement and schools and to be treated with stigma, disrepute, and punishment"(Rios 6). Many if not all of

In There Are No Children Here, Kotlowitz describes the experiences of Pharoah and Lafayette to highlight the racist and classist undertones existing within the criminal justice system of Chicago in the late 1980s. This essay will utilize the theory of critical criminology to illustrate the structures of inequality within the criminal justice system and the subsequent marginalization of youth that exists within the Henry Horner community, leading to youth deviance and violent crime. Beginning with a brief outline of the major characteristics of critical theory, the essay will then address the increasing focus on gang involvement as an explanation for inner-city youth crime, using examples from the Disciples and Vice Lord gangs, and how that focus demonstrates the bias and inequality within the criminal justice system. Next, the necessity of the Henry Horner community creating a system of “self-help” will be analyzed, a result of the perceived inadequacy of the criminal justice system in addressing the problems that the community faces. The theory of critical criminology demonstrates how structures of inequality are represented in the criminal justice system: the incessant focus on gangs and inadequacy of the system to provide protection causes the marginalization of youth like Pharoah and Lafayette, reinforcing instances of youth deviance and crime.

In Punished: policing the lives of Black and Latino by Victor Rios Oakland boys are studied in an ethnography. The purpose of the ethnography was to examine the how the boys interacted with themselves, the education system and the justice system. The purpose of this essay is to review what Rios has witnessed and recorded, in his book, and look through the lens of different sociological theories and theorists. These Theories and theorists Rios himself used when describing the behavior.

The concept of hypercriminalization specifically leads Rios to question how punishment, surveillance, and the criminal justice system affect minority adolescent males. Additionally, Rios wanted to know how the roles of authority figures such as police, school teachers, parents, and probation officers influenced or hindered adolescent male’s lives. For the study, Rios decided to shadow and conduct in-depth interviews with forty adolescent males, both Latino and African-American between the ages of fourteen and seventeen at the time of recruitment, from neighborhoods around Oakland, California. Additionally, Rios observed and informally interviewed seventy-eight other adolescent males that were friends or acquaintances of the boys Rios selected to study in-depth.

The text, “Anything Can Happen With Police Around,” examines the several studies that have been constructed about the countless views and interactions with the police, also taking into account the more detailed interactions with the police in a matter of race or gender. These studies have included the importance of how school surveillance, youth perspective, the general public’s perspective, attitudes toward the police and even sexual harassment from police towards females impact the lives and experiences of those around them. Throughout the years, there has been a growing concern of the criminal justice system to secure problems, from troublesome youth to the increasing crime rate that has had an effect on urban cities throughout the nation. Statistics show, from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention website, that from the year 2009 to 2014 the crime rate has steadily increased by 6%. The studies constructed, have detailed responses and experiences of both the minority and majority races that have had encounters with the police or those of higher authority. The perspective of the youth has brought an increasing amount of attention to those concerned about the matter. This survey was created to engage the youth and allow them to express how they felt towards those in higher authority, in a sense of both a safety issue and safety concern. According to the many topics discussed most viewed the adults as untrustworthy, but leaned towards their parents,

The first reading “Policing the ‘progressive’ city: The racialized geography of drug law enforcement” by Mona Lynch, Marisa Omori, Aaron Rousell and Matthew Valasik takes a closer look at the specific individual city organization within San Francisco and relates it back to areas like Cleveland, Detroit, New York, and Seattle to determine the city’s impact on racialized policing. Previous studies generalize their results to all cities, instead of looking at the historic and contemporary race relations, norms, political atmospheres, and the relationship between law enforcement and the community. Within San Francisco, there is an overrepresentation of African Americans in prison for drug offenses and they are concentrated in limited areas of San Francisco like the Tenderloin and Hunters Point due to gentrification.

Although the majority of Americans preaches that the days of racism are far behind, it is clear that institutional racism still exists in this country. One way to look at this institutional racism is to examine at the United States prison system and the gap of incarceration rates among African Americans, Hispanics, and White males. According to a research by Prison Policy Initiative both African Americans and Hispanics are imprisoned at 5.1 times and 1.8 times higher than the rate of White Americans for every 100,000 incarcerations, respectively. Throughout the history of the United States, it is obvious that the reasons for the disparity of the incarceration rate are related to policies, irregularities, and implicit prejudices. Families and children of the incarcerated are adversely affected due to the discrimination. However, many white Americans don’t see how racism affects incarceration rates and they would argue that the economic situation and past arrest patterns are responsible for the sustainable increase in the incarceration rate for African Americans and Hispanics. While the economic opportunity can indeed play a role in decision making, this argument doesn’t fully explain the real reason of this occurrence. In order to fully understand the reason, there is a need to review the history of the United States. Through the review, it is clear that the past arrest patterns is more an indicator of institutional racism still exists in this country. The New Jim Crow: Mass

the juvenile portion of the criminal justice system. The article found that, “black youth were

The article “Race and Policing: Treat Black Men And Boys like Victims, too” written by Gene Demby; focuses on the matter how black people are more likely to become the perpetrator of crime instead of the victim. he researched on the matter. His article focused on the study by the two sociologist names Andrew Papachristos and Christopher Wildeman. The passage argues bout the fact that people focuses on the fact the black men and boy are get blamed for the crimes but people don’t focus on the part about they being the victim. the police department in the areas where the majority are black people do not seem to care about solving the crimes as much as other areas. In the essay it was mentioned that in an urban area in Chicago, where the majority

For 6th article review, I decided to discuss the article Race, punishment and the Michael Vick experience. This article discusses the relationship between race and crime has been contentious, focusing primarily on offending and incarnation patterns among minorities. Throughout the article it discusses how serval studies have shown that minorities (mainly African Americans) view aspects of the criminal justice system differently than do whites.

When reading Robert d. Crutchfield’s, From Slavery to Social Class to Disadvantages, Crutchfield presented his perspective and central points about racial differences and criminal involvement. The first point that Crutchfield presents is that when it comes to race and crime the law enforcement’s thoughts on people of color and Hispanics are disingenuous and misleading. Crutchfield theorizes that, “It is likely that mass incarceration in criminogenic and increases black, brown and differences in criminal behavior. The agencies of the criminal justice system, charged with protecting society from crime, are now a major source of racial differences in criminal involvement” (Crutchfield 36). Statistics

In the novel “Police, Power and the Production of Racial Boundaries” by Ana Muniz, exposes how entrepreneurs, law enforcement, society and the criminal justice system shape our views towards minority races. Considering this, these influential groups and systems would use political policies and everyday procedures to criminalize and incriminate the African American and Latino communities in the Los Angeles area. Furthermore, she reveals the development of multiple-unit housing, residential and school desegregation, and lastly Los Angeles first gang injunction and how people of power shape our lives.

Rios’ work suggests that people drop out, commit crimes, and adapt themselves to a ‘fugitive life’ because they are unable to find an institution that grants them the acknowledgment and dignity that they are systematically denied. This analysis gives great context to the lives of career criminals…”Accessible, engaging and thought provoking, Punished presents unique data and compelling analytical insights, opening what should prove to be a fruitful line of research. For this reason and other reasons…this important book is a worthwhile read for anyone within or outside the academy who is looking to understand the punitive turn in American society from the perspective of those who are most heavily policed, punished and

Criminal punishments and victimization cause people to become more helpless after the matter, and they are often unable to leave their past behind them. Unfortunately, there is a pattern shown that often times race, the area in which a person lives, and social status of a criminal and the victim are taken into consideration when deciding on punishment for a crime. This can lead to discrimination playing a role in the decision making which is unfair. African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to be searched, questioned, or apprehended by a law enforcement officer than whites. Criminal and victims both will have many obstacles that they may face and have to overcome. These obstacles involve things that involve physical and emotional pain, mental difficulties, and even financial problems; however, different situations will affect each individual in various