Social Conflict Theory Paper

In our current capitalist society class distinction and exploitation is a major component that effects every individual. With class distinction and exploitation, comes a hierarchy of power among citizens. Those at the top exercise their will and control onto the masses of poor or impoverish people, those whom posses no power. Conflict theory was developed by Karl Marx's ideas of capitalism and the power of the class system. Conflict theory focuses on the importance of societal features such as status, economic inequality and political power (Albanese, Curtis, and Tepperman 2012). As Marx stated capitalism benefits the rich and powerful who then exert their social order on the poor and weak in order to control how certain individuals will be

As shown through census' and statistics of prison populations, most offenders in the prison system have been convicted for non-violent crimes, such as drug related charges and theft and robbery convictions (Kitossa 2016). These non-violent crime convictions stem from social and economic inequality. Within the system of capitalism, those at the bottom of the social hierarchy are exploited in the labour wage market and many must turn to what the elite have termed "illegal" means in order to provide for themselves and their families. The industrialization of imprisonment has caused and continues to harm society because it perpetuates and reinforces social inequality, the very thing that causes most crimes. I will focus on three different ways that imprisonment perpetuates and reinforces social inequality in prisons and the rest of society, and how this creates a negative cycle, for those capitalism has defined as poor and weak. It is a cycle in which they cannot escape. Criminals are scapegoats for the elite, we impose willing ignorance when it comes to why society criminalizes certain behaviours and not others that are just as

The issue with there being rampant hostility between inmates and prison guards is that this hostility will seep into the rest of society with inmates once or if they are released into the public. While it is an asset to be critical of societal norms and structures it becomes dangerous when individuals become violent and hard towards these very things. Prison breeds violence and callousness, therefore the antagonism between the inmates and prison guards will cause inmates to be hostile towards all authority figures. This happens because of the mistreatment that is perpetuated and allowed in prisons against prisoners. In 1976 a committee put together by parliament was imposed with the task to examine how the penitentiary system in Canada functions (Friedenberg 1980). This committee filed a report called "The MacGuigan Report" which "clearly identifies the hatred, hostility, contempt and underlying fear of guards for inmates as the major source of the abuses it describes" (Friedenberg 1980). One major example of prison guards abusing inmates is discussed in the article Balkans in a Box: Rape, race War, and Other Forms of Management. In this article prison guards actively ignored prison rape and often would use inmate against inmate rape as punishment for prisoners who were in their bad books (Parenti 2008). Guards actively overused