Alice Goffman Essay

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Recommended: Tension between police and minorities

Alice Goffman has completed research for black men in and out of incarceration in the United States, from poor, metropolitan communities, which little education. Blacks receive discrimination from officers through stereotyping and racial profiling. The police are patrolling areas of poverty because of the high crime rate blacks have in cities, including Philadelphia, New York City, and Chicago. The discrimination leads to blacks not being able to get jobs, afford a healthy lifestyle, and support their family. Goffman has done research to examine why black citizens fear the police’s presence instead of feeling safe. This research was expanded over six years to see the honest truth of discrimination. Alice was friendly with men and women of …show more content…

Goffman explains this quote as secondary deviance. She observed her friends get into more unnecessary trouble due to illegal actions they could not involve the police in. The men were taking matters into their own hands as they thought they were going to end the violence, with more violence. Her friends believed they had to get even with people who did them wrong. Many people took part in these “self-help crimes” because of the illegal things happening such as drug deals and warrants out for arrest of those who were involved. The police were not to get involved in keeping citizens out of jail.
“Children learn at an early age to watch out for the police and to prepare to run” (Goffman 343).
Goffman explains that children as young as five years old know exactly what the police say when they stop someone. Two children imitated a police officer stopping someone for drugs and seized the items from the pocket of the suspect. Although this entirely pretended, the children both knew what the police officer and the suspect would say and do. Police’s presence is not necessarily a good thing when it involves children learning to run from the cops, instead of cooperating respectfully. The fear of police officers are being spread into so many people that children are

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