Similar To The Last Chapter, Chapter Four Focuses On Social

In cities like Baltimore, Maryland, and Chicago, the worst cities for urban youth, teen crime is not extraordinary. The poverty-ridden towns further provide reason and excuse for crime. Now this can be caused by many things, but the key ones are for money to provide basic needs and a way to obtain material goods that could not be obtained lawfully. In “The Other Wes Moore” by Wes Moore, two impoverished teens growing up in Baltimore experience very different lives, one will find himself on top of the world, and the other far below in a state prison.

No matter what, we are almost always talking about violence masculinity in America. Whether we are talking about the horrifying, high-profile mass shooting we have seen over recent decades, the far greater rates of murder and gun violence we see on a day – to – day basis that barely register in the national news, or the epidemic of sexual violence and domestic violence, the vast majority of this violence is committed by men, young men, and boys (Jackson Katz, 2013). Throughout this essay the topics covered will be how culture defines masculinity, according to the film, violent masculinity as a cultural norm, agents of socialization that teach boys how to be men, the cool

The criminal justice system approaches young offenders through unique policies to address the challenges of dealing with juvenile offending. They take special care when dealing with juveniles in order to stop them from repeat offending and stop any potential bad behaviour which could result in future. Juveniles have the highest tendency to rehabilitate and most adopt law-abiding lifestyles as they mature. There are several factors influencing juvenile crime including psychological and social pressures unique to juveniles, which may lead to an increase in juvenile’s risks of contact with the criminal justice system.

Rios describes different situations and plights that afflict the boys of his study. He did so in his book by organizing the ideas by chapter. The first part examines how the police abuse and accuse the boys in their everyday life. They do not need to be

The problems inherent in this shift in focus are now coming to a head as youth violence has reached crisis proportions. In recent years, with juveniles increasingly responsible for major and violent crimes, public sentiment in

This sense of entitlement is one of the reasons that violence is so prevalent among this age group of men. Although most men believe that acts of hazing, bullying, rape, and fighting are wrong, they conform to this culture of silence because they are afraid of being shunned by their peers. “Silence is one of the ways that boys become men.” (61) They are forced to be silent witnesses because if they were to express any vulnerability, they would likely become the next target. As Kimmel says, “what happens in Guyland stays in Guyland”. (62) By silencing oneself and turning a blind eye, these young men are not only supporting themselves, but also protecting themselves. When the community dismisses these violent acts, the criminals who commit these atrocious acts are protected, which in turn “enables them to transgress again, or even escalate the severity of their actions.” (63)

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 Frontline episode “When Kids Get Life” serves as a reminder for how the criminal justice system sometimes drops the proverbial ball when it comes to juveniles. Time after time, situations arise and are brought to the attention of the Department of Social Services. Whether they are overlooked or lost somehow, they are deprived of the help they need. The system fails children who are crying for help, and the results are sometimes fatal. Circumstances lead to the loss of life, not only for the victims, but also for the delinquents who saw no other way out. In other cases, the group mentality of juveniles equates to the responsibility of all members for a crime committed by one person.

Victor Rios is not only an author of a book called Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys, but he is also an ex-felon. Rios holds a PH.D. in sociology and is now an assistant professor at the University of Santa Barbara. Victor Rios has published on juvenile justice, masculinity, and race and crime in scholarly in journals such as the Critical Criminology. He has not only lived the life he preaches about, he has shown to be extremely knowledgable in this life he has once lived and is also considered an expert in his field of sociology among his peers . Rios grew up in the streets of Oakland, California and found himself in the midst of trouble when he joined a gang at the age of 13. Victor Rios lived the life of the typical stereotypical hispanic young male, living in high crime poverty neighborhoods. As a young boy, he began dealing drugs, participating in the killings of people, and violence. Throughout his life, he has witnessed a great deal of horrific tragedies that not many thirteen year olds experience ever in their whole life. Throughout his experiences, he was able to live and tell his stories through his book, Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. Victor Rios has used his past experiences for the good, he has mentored many kids who are going through what he went though as an adolescent. Throughout the many obstacles he has faced, it has opened up the opportunity for him to write this book about his life and the gang

For decades our country has witnessed many cases of police brutality, which has become a controversial topic among communities and in the media. Police Officers are faced with threatening situations daily that could cost them their life, forcing them to make quick decisions, expecting the worst and hoping for the best. It is evident that there is a tremendous amount of expectations placed on our police enforcement. Although conducted almost 20 years ago, the New-York based survey, “Young Adults and Public Spaces,” is still very relevant in today’s society. The study was used to record the experiences of New York youths with adult surveillance in their community. The majority of the sample was African American or Latino, and female (Fine, Michelle, et al.).

During the Progressive Era - a period of industrialization, capitalism, and stratification of the class system - reformers helped establish the juvenile justice system as a way to decrease the rising juvenile crimes while also maintaining the dignity of the ‘uncontaminated’ and therefore deserving youth (Platt, 1977; Peirce, 1869). However, in reality, the complicated nature of working with children and crime have left the juvenile justice system continue to struggle with clarifying and following through with its mission. As social workers, whose mission is to strive for social justice as well as pay “particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty” (NASW, 1996), it is critical that we look more closely at the reasoning behind why we are still unable to define and follow through with what social justice looks like for these youth 200 years later.

The overall sense that the reader gets from this book is that growing caseloads, inadequate facilities, and arbitrary “get-tough” laws are rendering the juvenile justice system in California and elsewhere in America ultimately ineffective. Redeemable kids are sent to adult prisons to “criminal college” to become more hardened and violent instead of being rehabilitated. Extremely violent kids are kept within the juvenile system to be released at twenty-five, based solely on whether they are over or under the age of sixteen. Abandoned or neglected kids are sent to languish within a broken foster care system, to be raised in group homes with deplorable

Throughout the story, the author’s major theme is to recognize that all juvenile delinquents have a reason behind their actions, misbehaviors, and personalities. These horrendous criminal acts are often resolved by the adolescent youth being caught in action by a law enforcer at a younger age and then sentenced to a juvenile detention center; one as helpful as Giddings State School. Giddings State School is known for their successfully aggressive treatments which helps transform a youth from continuing their criminal lifestyle as an adult and later end up in an adult corrections facility, such as prison.

Societies tend to view the youth as the future and hope of a nation. To a certain extent, societies observe the behaviours and potential of the young people to ‘estimate’ the political and socio-economic future of a nation. When there is what societies view as a deviance from the norm when in it comes to young people – often there is what is viewed as a ‘moral panic’. I will be looking at the ‘moral panic’ of youth crime or juvenile delinquency, the role of its ‘moral

A person may experience internal conflict in trying to decide which set of values, attitudes, and codes of behavior to accept and internalize. For example, to a kid living in a neighborhood that has many criminal types, these people may be symbols of economic and social success because they have money, expensive clothes, fancy cars, and other material possessions that inspire respect and jealousy. The kids may draw to the criminal life-style of these people because they want the same symbols of success for themselves. At the same time, several youths in the neighborhood may have good relationships with parents or other adults who are noncriminal in their life-styles and who try to instill non-delinquent values in them. A young person exposed to both types of influences must balance out their merits and decide whether to accept the values of one set of associates or those of the other. Between 1990 and 2002 there were 13,504 males and 3,168 females who died as a result of homicide. This showed that males, ages 12 through 17, were four times more likely than females to be murdered. Arrests of adolescents for violent crimes are reported by police headquarters