Crime can affect the way individuals perceive others generally creating bias and prejudice within a person’s frame of thought; hopefully we can make someone think a little differently. Social structure theories generally put forth that the disadvantaged economic class is a primary cause of crime. It states that neighborhoods which are “lower class” create forces of strain, disorganization, and frustration that lead to the action of crime, they have used these to put them into classes; social disorganization, strain theory and cultural deviance. Social disorganization theory suggests that slum dwellers violate the law because they live in areas where social control has broken down. The origin of social disorganization theory can be traced to the work of Shaw and McKay, who concluded that disorganized areas marked by divergent values and transitional populations produce criminality.
Different sociologists have presented different theories and concepts to explain what drives a person to commit a crime, and research and statistics give us an idea of the type of crimes committed and the places that they’re most likely to occur. However, these statistics can prove to be misleading as not all crime is reported to or recorded by the police. This can be referred to as the ‘hidden figure’, and it differentiates between the official crime rate and the real rate. Despite this, they do prove to be worthwhile in the fact that they display trends and patterns of crime. Sociologists use three different methods to measure crime; each method provides us with particular information and as in all systems of data collecting, there are strengths and weaknesses to the method.
One researcher found that police made decisions on whether to arrest youth based on their physical cues. Other decisions were made by their class, ethnicity and gender e.g. police were more likely to arrest an individual if they were a black working class boy. Furthermore Cicourel looked out other decisions such as stereotypes and generalisations, thus they concentrated on certain types of groups. This then lead for official statistics and the law enforcement to show a bias towards working class boys.
It is useful for highlighting why, in the working class, those who cannot achieve in education, they then therefore suffer from status frustration and in this process turn to other people who also cannot achieve in this institution. Thus, explaining why deviance subcultures exist. This theory of status frustration is said to focus too much on utilitarian crime which is committed for material gain, but what it does not say much about is the explanation for why people commit non-utilitarian crimes like vandalism and assault. Cohen realised this and backed up this explanation by talking about alternative status hierarchy. When working class boys find that they cannot perform well in mainstream education, they look at the values of not only the education system, but the values in modern society and turn them upside down, by valuing the opposite.
However, this is not the case because evidence of racism in the imposition of the death penalty is clearly recognizable. Within this paper, racial disparities in the application of the death penalty will not only be addressed but also it will address the prosecutor’s role, influential factors, statistics, and the efforts that need to be implemented to reduce racial disparities in the death penalty. Racial Disparity The issues surrounding the death penalty is arguably one of the most controversial social issues in the world. One of the more significant controversies regarding the death penalty is whether its application is mired in patterns of racial bias. This biased attitude toward minorities has and continues to lead to racial disparities in imposing the death penalty.
Racial and Ethnic Profiling by Law Enforcement Name: Institutional affiliation: Racial and Ethnic Profiling by Law Enforcement Introduction Racial and ethnic profiling is the use of ethnic, racial, religious or national characteristics as a way of isolating people for security or identity checks. It is a practice whereby security, intelligence and law enforcement officers make decisions about their suspicions of a person based on the person’s race or ethnicity rather than reasonable suspicion (Ethan, 2013). There have been raging debates as to whether racial and ethnic profiling should be used. People who support racial and ethnic profiling argue that certain ethnicities or races are more likely to commit crime as compared to other groups. They claim that profiling is then not about race or ethnicity but about carrying out the most proficient fighting operations to target crime.
This debate group and paper will deal with the subject of racism and specifically racism on college campuses. Is racism a problem on college campuses or not? I think in order to answer that question we must first define racism in a social problem context. According to our text, Social Problems in a Diverse Society, “racism is a set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices used to justify the superior treatment of one racial ethnic group and the inferior treatment of another racial or ethnic group” (Kendall 52). For the most part, the white race is typically the culprit for being racist towards minority groups, although, blacks can be racist towards Hispanics and vise versa.
However evidence is presented there are strengths and limitations in whichever way the researcher presents their findings. This essay will focus on and discuss the strengths and limitations of case studies as a source of evidence for social injustice. A very common way for evidence to be presented is by way of personal testimonies of individuals experiencing the injustice, We can see in DVD 1 The Open University (2013) ‘Chapter3 Gated communities [Video clip], DD208 Welfare, crime and society.which focuses on exploring the issues relating to crime the feelings of those who live within the gated communities in relation to the way this made them feel safe, evaluating social exclusion and the vulnerability felt by the people in South Africa who used the gated communities. It also explored the feelings of those on the outside of the gated communities who felt social exclusion. The interviews in the DVD and the testimonies of people involved in the making of the DVD gave us, the viewer, an insight into the thoughts and opinions of both those who lived in the communities and those
Another benefit would also be having a first- hand account of what an individual who could give testimony of what was seen or experienced. Basic human error, biased opinions, and emotions are some of the disadvantages to eyewitness testimonies. Another disadvantage is how line-ups are being conducted; but the worst disadvantage is the difficulty of witnesses trying to identify perpetrators from other ethnic groups or races. Our view and reliability on the criminal justice system is constantly in a state of change. To what extent will these changes reshape our government and laws?
The community accountability hypothesis suggests that formal and informal characteristics of police departments foster police-minority tensions and promote police violence, a viewpoint that underlies prominent policy proposals to reduce police brutality (e.g., NAACP, 1995; Skolnick and Fyfe, 1993). Making police departments more accountable to the communities they serve, for instance, by increasing minority representation, may break down barriers and reduce police brutality. Grounded in the conflict theory of law, the threat hypothesis maintains that the presence of threatening minorities predicts the use of coercive crime control mechanisms, which help maintain the existing social order (Holmes, 2000; Jackson, 1989). In this view, police-minority tensions stem, inevitably, from enduring racial and ethnic divisions in American society that cannot be addressed simply by altering the organization of