Before spelling out who or what is to blame for the crimes of Primo and Caesar in Philippe Bourgois’ In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio, it is important to acknowledge that explanation is not exoneration. Primo and Caesar engage in violence and break the law. At the most immediate level, Primo and Caesar are responsible for their actions. But if we are only to see Primo and Caesar as solely responsible for their crimes, we are left with a limited range of options in terms of social policy for dealing with the types of crimes committed by men like Primo and Caesar in inner-city neighborhoods. If by “blaming” we are looking for a set of causes of Primo and Caesar’s crimes, then we can come to see a multitude of causes inner-city problems, and shape public policies accordingly. Bourgois’ ethnography tries to look at both agency and structure, both free will and social constraints, and he does so by looking at the crimes and violence of men like Primo and Caesar in the macro context of political economy, or structurally, all the way down to individual choices, or how these men exercise their agency within the constraints they confront. What is fascinating about this portrayal of violence is how it incorporates culture for understanding the practices of selling crack in the social world of el barrio. Bourgois does not want to play “blame the victim,” does not want to present his readers with a “pornography of violence,” but also does not want to reduce the crimes of these men economic explanations. Relying on culture, then, helps him to avoid these possible problems when studying street culture.
The crime and violence are very real. This cannot be denied. For example, Primo’s deep involvement in the crack house trade (Bo...
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...spects of the problem, but Bourgois is also adamant throughout the book that he wants to examine the ways structure and culture interact. In some ways, they can help offset the deficits in dignity that may propel young, poorer men to turn to violence and crime as badges of honor. But I scratch my head thinking about programs that may more directly fill the need on these guy’s part to be seen as men, real men, given that their gender ideologies seem so foreign and I can not see government, like smaller community based organizations have, provide programs that get into the nitty gritty of people’s lives. Perhaps government can better fund the private programs that do. Still, taking the structural pressure off with big programs should also take the cultural pressure off young men to act out in violence, at least to some degree, which is more significant than no degree.
Criminal justice institutions in Oakland challenge masculinity as a means of rehabilitation. For instance, from a boy’s perspective, being a man involves standing up to peers who challenge self-confidence. This results in law breaking and violent fights, which can create opportunities for arrests. On the other hand, probation officers believe that being a man involves obtaining an education to support your family. However, by living in a poor neighborhood where punitive social control is ratified, the boys can hardly find employment. Thus, it generates hypermasculinity, which “often influenced the young men to perpetrate defiance, crime, and violence, sanctioning police to brutalize or arrest them” (p. 138). To reiterate, probation officers tell the boys to “get a job, do well in school and stay out of trouble” (p. 139). But the odds of succeeding are low, because “most avenues of legitimate success were out of reach” (p.
Victor Rios is a previous gang member, whom “was given the opportunity” to get out of the youth control complex. In his book “Punished”, he analyzes the experiences of young black and Latino boys in Oakland, California. Rios gives us an intimate description of some of the everyday forms of “hyper discrimination” these minority boys experience. This book review will focus on the main concepts explained in chapters one through three from the book Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys.
The book "Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys" is written by Victor M. Rios, who was a former gang member in his hometown and later turned his life around. He went to Berkeley and earned a doctorate in sociology. This book explores how youth of color are punished and criminalized by authorities even under the situation where there is no crimes committed and how it can cause a harmful consequence for the young man and their community in Oakland, California. The goal is to show the consequences of social control on the lives of young people of color and try to remind the authorities. This is important Since society plays a crucial part in shaping the lives of people. And the authorities have biases towards them and mistreat
This book review covers Policing Gangs in America by Charles Katz and Vincent Webb. Charles Katz has a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice, while Vincent Webb has a Ph.D. in Sociology, making both qualified to conduct and discuss research on gangs. Research for Policing Gangs in America was gathered in four cities across the American Southwest; Inglewood, California, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Phoenix, Arizona. This review will summarize and discuss the main points of each chapter, then cover the relationship between the literature and class discussions in Introduction to Policing and finally it will note the strengths and weaknesses of book.
The documentary Crips and Bloods: Made in America, can be analyzed through three works: “Modern Theories of Criminality” by C.B. de Quirόs, “Broken Windows” by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling and “Social Structure and Anomie” by Robert K. Merton.
Staples successfully begins by not only admitting the possible faults in his practiced race but also by understanding the perspective of the one who fear them. Black males being opened to more violence because of the environment they're raised in are labeled to be more likely to cause harm or committing crime towards women but Staples asks why that issue changes the outlook of everyday face to face contact and questions the simple actions of a black man? Staples admits, "women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence," (Staples 384) however...
For this assignment I decided to read the book Code of the Street: decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city by Elijah Anderson. This book is about how inner city people live and try and survive by living with the code of the streets. The code of the streets is basically morals and values that these people have. Most of the time it is the way they need to act to survive. Continuing on within this book review I am going to discuss the main points and arguments that Anderson portrays within the book. The main points that the book has, goes along with the chapters. These points consist of Street and decent families, respect, drugs violence, street crime, decent daddy, the mating game, black inner city grandmother. Now within these points there are a few main arguments that I would like to point out. The first argument is the belief that you will need to accept the street code to get through life. The other one is the belief that people on the street need “juice”. For the rest of this paper we will be looking at each one of main points and arguments by going through each chapter and discussing it.
Throughout the article “The Code of the Streets,” Elijah Anderson explains the differences between “decent” and “street” people that can be applied to the approaches of social control, labeling, and social conflict theories when talking about the violence among inner cities due to cultural adaptations.
CNN presents the documentary, Homicide in Hollenbeck, spotlighting gang activity in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollenbeck. This documentary explores the subculture of gangs existing within Hollenbeck from a several perspectives. The people documented include a mother who lost both of her sons to gang violence, a priest that has tried to help rehabilitate gang members, a police officer that has worked in Hollenbeck for five years in the gang unit, and a current gang member. For a conclusion, Homicide in Hollenbeck focuses on a juvenile exposed to gang life on the cusp of decided where they want their life to lead; gangs or freedom. Problems attributed to the high rate of gang activity and number of gangs in Hollenbeck are the high poverty rate, low employment rate, and broken families that make up the majority of Hollenbeck. The crime most discussed, as per the title of the documentary, is homicide The number of gang related homicides has risen even though the criminal behavior of gangs has ultimately decreased in the neighborhood. In order to fight the overwhelming gang presence, the police believe in increasing the amount of gun power on the streets and number of jailed gang members. The priest who runs Homeboy Industries stated that he feels most gang members are just young men who can’t get out of the gang life. With more funds and opportunities, he thinks the problem could be decreased. In the end, the documentary mentions that the FBI has formed a gang center where local law enforcement agencies can share information to gain more knowledge and to better fight the presence of gangs.
These cadet’s moral issues against women and them self’s steamed from the oppression that they suffered at the hands of the college’s relentless ego shattering and extreme hazing that would come from the seniors to the knobs. Right from the start of their schooling these men are subjected to horrendous prolonged unjust treat meant where they are told that masculinity is now a way of life. Treatment that was so unforgiving that these men could not even walk away with a clear really of who they were any more instead they would pay attention to the social cues around them and as a result they conform, and obey there male dominating leaders. Then with some hope of regaining some control in their lives they lash out to other class mates this motivational treatment affects any one around them regardless of gender as long as they were seen as weaker. These men were forced to not only play the role of the female, but also that of male causing gender confusion for many of these cadets. By forcing these young men to not only shower together in non-stalled showers and to relay on each other to dress each other with the proper shirt tuck and do all the domestic house work it at times even being dresses as women during etiquette-training, created a highly dysfunctional reality for these young men that they should
In the 1970’s Patricia Adler and her husband infiltrated a large drug smuggling and dealing ring located in Southwest County of southern California with the intent of learning more about the covert group. In Adler’s book Wheeling and Dealing: an Ethnography of an Upper-Level Drug Dealing and Smuggling Community, she delves into the multifaceted lifestyle and activities of those in the Southwest County drug world. In this paper, I will look into the factors that initiated their entry into the drug world, their activates that facilitated their smuggling and dealing of drugs, and their exit from the drug world, while applying multiple theories to explain their illegal behavior.
Society influences the socioeconomic inequalities between people, which usually results in differing social and cultural norms surrounding violence. These norms might include male dominance over women, while certain cultural norms might support violence and claim it to be a reasonable method to resolve conflicts in neighborhoods. We see this shown in the film because they talk about how violence is a two step process. The first part is the thought that, ‘I have a grievance with someone’, and the second part is that the grievance justifies violence (James et al.,
Our team presentation focused on three Latino gangs, MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha), the Mexican Mafia and the Los Surenos gang. My part of the presentation was to provide information on the type of crime these three gangs are known to commit. The crimes committed by the MS-13 gang are varied, violent, and take place all over the country. The FBI even put together a task force called the MS-13 National Gang Task Force in December of 2004 to try to put a stop to this gang’s activities. (www.fbi.gov). Los Surenos or Sur-13, originally based in Los Angeles, has also branched out from turf wars with rival gangs to “for profit”, violent crimes across the country. The Mexican Mafia has a similar story to tell as well in regards to gang crimes, which again range from respect crimes, and retaliatory violence to crimes for profit.
McMahan’s article “Heartland: Symbolic Displays of Aggression and Male Masculinity in Rural America” stated “how masculinity is understood, defined displayed, identified, and positioned within a social system is created by and reflected within the interactions of social group members.” This indicates that masculinity started and created by the number of people interact in the environment. Masculinity can also lead to judgements when it is performed successfully or not. Despite of masculinity being judgmental, men must play the act of their “culturally specific, symbolic behaviors if they wish to construct a masculine identity in a given culture”. In this article, it gives a study to observe masculinity in a rural setting and how the community members view masculinity. The author who works as a bartender/bouncer found that there is violence that occurred, in which “it is impossible to avoid problematic interactions with bar customers, who might well be drink or under the influence of drugs, and it became to just sit there and observe” (Heartland, qtd: pg. 543), according to Winlow, Hobbs, Lister, and Handfield (2001). This indicates that violence can lead to dramatic problems when handling masculinity in
The author questions the fact, whether African American men are actually criminal threats or victims of society. “Black men are typically constructed as criminals when in truth they much more likely to be victimized by American Society” (BMCV, pg. 1). The adage of the adage. Most fail to realize that African American men can commit crime, but they also can be victims of crime, and a majority of the time they are the victims. Another idea he questioned is, why are more African American men considered to be perpetrators of crime rather than victims?