Thesis For The Other Wes Moore

The novel, The Other Wes Moore, written by Wes Moore, tells the story of two kids that grew up with the same name, fatherless, and often got in trouble with the police. The author: Wes Moore, grew up to become a Rhodes Scholar, army officer, and ultimately achieving the American Dream. As for the other Wes Moore, he ended up serving a life sentence in prison, conclusively not achieving the American Dream. The American Dream is the ideal that every American can prosper through hard work, and determination. So, why did Wes Moore achieve success, while the other Wes Moore ended up in jail, even though they practically both came from the same backgrounds.

Prince George’s County, Maryland, a suburb of Washington D.C., Provides a study on if police are actually racist, the county’s experience suggest that racism is deeply structured of policing, and isn’t going to change

“The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates Essay” written by Wes Moore, which is based on his and another man with the same name life. The book follows two kids with the same name were born blocks apart in the same city just within a year of each other. Both boys had similar circumstances, for which they both growing up in the middle of the crack epidemic in the 1980’s in the city of Baltimore. Both boys had troubling childhood grew up within a single parent household without their fathers in their life’s. Although both two men born into a similar position in the world ended up leading wildly different lives. The author Wes Moore grew up to achieve great things becoming decorated veteran, White House Fellows, and business leader. The other Wes

Policing is a very difficult, complex and dynamic field of endeavor that is always evolves as hard lessons teach us what we need to know about what works and what don’t work. There are three different Era’s in America’s policing: The Political Era, The Reform Era, and The Community Problem Solving Era. A lot has changed in the way that policing works over the years in the United States.

This true story is based on two African American males who grew up with many similarities but landed a completely different outcome in life. One of the main similarities is their name, Wes Moore. Both Wes Moore’s grew up in a fatherless home, born in the same neighborhood of Baltimore during the 1970’s, and both were handcuffed before age 11. The same question remains. How did one end up as a scholar, veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader and the other one end up serving a life sentence for a robbery that ended in the murder of a police officer? The book reflects how developmental psychology is implemented by focusing on the physical, social, and cultural environments influence developments that occur over time.

Today in the United States, society is faced with various types of social issues like the homeless, and police violence. As the United states continues to grow larger in population, so does the number of citizens who that will be without a home. The United States has always been known as, “The Land of the Free,” but larger populations make crowded cities a haven for crime and police violence. The homeless and police violence tends to share similarities in some of the different aspects of both social issues surrounding them. The homeless and police sometimes can set fear in citizens, they both happen to hover mainly in the inner cities, differences are that while the homeless may be suffering at young ages from disease, the police are dealing with complex racial tension that with proper training can lead to a successful relation with society.

Over policing in African American communities started during the drug wars and continue to result in over drug arrests of African Americans. Over policing may also occur when police concentrate their efforts not on illegal activity, but on citizens behavior with the hope that in the process of the investigation some evidence of crime may be uncovered. Some police activities such as undercover drug buys are more common in African American communities than other communities and consequently disproportionate numbers of African Americans are arrested for drug dealing (Nunn, 2002). When it comes to violent or non drug crimes there is a clear victim and suspect, and the police can go to the crime scene and investigate. On the other hand when it comes to drug related offences, there isn’t a clear victim and the police can choose when and where to investigate. Police choose to target African American communities because they are easier to target, which results in over drug arrests (Mauer, 199, p.143). The police focus on substances that blacks buy, sell, and places where they would sell them, which results in high drug arrests rates. For example in 2008, the drug arrests of blacks was 3.5 times higher than whites (Tonry, 2011 p. 54). One would wonder if the government and law

The other Wes Moore written by Wes Moore is about two completely different life stories that have completely different outcomes. Two young men with the same name, lived in the same neighborhood, yet they chose two different paths to walk through life. The author chose going to school and getting an education. The other Wes Moore chose the path of drugs and alcohol. Each Wes had events that help shape the path they would walk on through life.

In the second part of Parenti’s book, Lockdown America, he discusses policing practices and their proactive strategies aimed at preventing disorder. In this section of the book, Parenti advances his argument by looking at crime through the eyes of law enforcement. Parenti looks at the policies of Bratton, the New York Police Commissioner. Bratton revamped the police force in the city, rewarded those that succeeded and were aggressive in doing their job and those that did not keep up with him were fired or put on the sidelines. His goals was to be efficient on every level, and being efficient meant enforcing the law even for minor offences.

When it comes to the topic of police reform, many agree that our country is long overdue for it, however, the questions are how exactly do we, as a nation, go about changing one of the most powerful structures to exist in the country. While some believe that reform must come from within the individually flawed police departments, others argue that the entire criminal justice system needs an overhaul. In this Response essay about Ta-Nehisti Coastes’ essay “The Myth of Police Reform,” Coates is saying, that the criminal-justice system is not working as well as it should. They are putting people, especially African Americans in jail or killing them. Some people have a mental or physical disability or a have a drug or alcohol problem that

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.

There is recent controversy over police use of force, especially in minority communities such as in African American communities, Hispanic communities, and other publics with large populations of minorities. Increased levels of force among these communities have created challenges for police departments. These challenges include a lack of trust from the community towards law enforcement officers and an absence of respect creating situations that lead to police use of force. There are already various programs in place that attempt to decrease this challenge by educating the public, respecting one another, and giving those who were on the wrong track second chances. A combination of these solutions and the implementation of more of them would decrease the number of contacts between police and minorities that lead to the use of force (Roberg & Novak, 2014).

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.

The report has presented overwhelming statistical evidence to support this conclusion. BPD stops over 500 pedestrians per every 1,000 African Americans and only under 200 pedestrians for every 1,000 Caucasian Residents. A solution to this issue would be to have a diverse/variety of officers employed under the Baltimore Police Department. Diversity should not merely be based on race but on the background as well. BPD should only assign officers to work in a jurisdiction where they are familiar with the residents and the demographics of the area. For example, if an area is 90% African American and is known for high drug trafficking, an officer from a county with majority white residents and only a discriminatory point of view on African Americans should not be assigned to work in this area. It is important that officers familiarize themselves with the area they are policing because it will give them a certain level of understanding and aid in determining how they should approach situations. Also, officers should be able to honestly express when they are an assigned to an environment where they do not feel comfortable. Keeping the lines of communication open between police officers and administration is very important. Officers should be able to perform their duties in a comfortable environment

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and discuss the three different policing strategies known as, broken windows, zero tolerance, and problem oriented policing. Each of these strategies have both their pros and cons throughout this paper I will be describing each of these strategies along with discussing a few articles in relation to these strategies. In light of the recent tension between law enforcement and the community, specifically minorities ill also be discussing how these strategies have either helped or hurt communities.