The Hip-Hop community and their cultural appurtenances challenge authority on America by turning the "U.S . Imprisonment Philosophy" inside out , effectively defeating the ground purposes of imprisonment and punishment . The Hip-Hop community portrays The American Imprisonment System as corrupted and racially bias . Studies show that music not only alters the mood of a person ,but also their perspective on life. Since the arrival of 'Gangsta' rap in the mid 1980's , Hip-hop music has negatively influenced the attitudes , of its' listeners, toward the American Legal System.
Before one can hope to understand how the Hip-Hop community can possibly turn the "U.S .Imprisonment Philosophy" on it’s head one must be familiar with this philosophy . The purpose of imprisonment in the United States is to dissuade potential,and residing criminals from leading lives of crime . There are two types of deterrence("Deterrence Theory"),one type is "General Deterrence", the other “Specific Deterrence”.
One method of deterrence is “General Deterrence” , which is designed to "prevent crime in the general population" by making an example of the current offenders . More often than not , potential offenders acknowledge the punishment their criminal predecessor received, notices the stigma that follows that criminal, and decide on a different path .
The other stratagem of deterrence is "Specific Deterrence" , "designed to dissuade the criminal that committed the crime." . The objective of this tactic of deterrence is to apply enough pain and or suffering to offset the pleasure that criminal receives from committing the previous crime , in result that criminals desire to avoid further punishment would supersede their aspiration for a life of crime
Rap a...
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...ut how young black guys are targeted
Targeted by who? America
You see, one in every 100 Americans are locked up
One in every 9 black Americans are locked up.
In his lyrics, Lil Wayne describes the conditions and statistics of federal oppression and detainment of black people.
Works Cited
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Butler, Paul. “Much Respect: Toward A Hip-Hop Theory Of Punishment.” 1 April 2004. 6 March 2014
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The three-strikes law is defined as “judges sentence offenders with three felony convictions (in some states two or four convictions) to long prison terms, sometimes to life without parole (Cole 2014). The purpose of the three strikes law includes is incapacitation and deterrence (Cole 2014). The purpose of a sentencing and the goals of punishment ideally are meant to correspond to each other. The goals of punishment include retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and restorative punishment (Cole 2014). Deterrence is broken down into either specific or general deterrence. General deterrence is defined as punishment of criminals that is intended to be an example to the general public and to discourage the commission of offenses”. Specific deterrence is defined as “punishment inflicted on criminals to discourage them from committing future crimes”. Lastly, incapacitation is defined as “depriving an offender of the ability to commit crimes against society, usually by detaining the offender in prison” (Cole 2014). Two empirical articles research the effectiveness of the three strikes law on crime trends, the impact the law has on population prisons, effect on a prisons budget,
This paper will be focusing on the courts as the specific sub-system in the criminal justice system. As said in the book the court system is responsible for charging criminal suspects, carrying out trials, and sentencing a person convicted of a crime. The fear of crime influences criminal justice policies in the court system. One way it does this is with the courts sentencing. Courts are able to give out severe punishments as a method of deterrence. This specific type of deterrence would be general deterrence. The book says that general deterrence theory should work if the punishment is clear, severe, and done swiftly. According to this theory, crime rate should drop because people will fear the punishment. The other way fear of crime influences
George covers much familiar ground: how B-beats became hip hop; how technology changed popular music, which helped to create new technologies; how professional basketball was influenced by hip hop styles; how gangsta rap emerged out of the crack epidemic of the 1980s; how many elements of hip hop culture managed to celebrate, and/or condemn black-on-black violence; how that black-on-black violence was somewhat encouraged by white people scheming on black males to show their foolishness, which often created a huge mess; and finally, how hip hop used and continues to use its art to express black frustration and ambition to blacks while, at the same time, refering that frustration and ambition to millions of whites.
In Total Chaos, Jeff Chang references Harry Allen, a hip hop critic and self-proclaimed hip hop activist. Harry Allen compares the hip hop movement to the Big Bang and poses this complex question: “whether hip-hop is, in fact a closed universe-bound to recollapse, ultimately, in a fireball akin to its birth-or an open one, destined to expand forever, until it is cold, dark, and dead” (9). An often heard phase, “hip hop is dead,” refers to the high occurrence of gangster rap in mainstream hip hop. Today’s hip hop regularly features black youths posturing as rich thugs and indulging in expensive merchandise. The “hip hop is dead” perspective is based on the belief that hip hop was destined to become the model of youth resistance and social change. However, its political ambitions have yet to emerge, thus giving rise to hip hops’ criticisms. This essay will examine the past and present of hip hop in o...
The aims of sentencing include punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation, denunciation and protection. Punishment is used to punish the offender for their wrong conduct to an extent and in a way that is just in all circumstances and is intended to show public abhorrence from the offence. An example of a sentencing option that may be used to punish an offender includes imprisonment. A recent sentence imposed in the Tasmanian Supreme Court aimed at punishing an offender is the case of Michael Robert Keeling v State of Tasmania in which the judge needed to balance the need to punish the offender and the need to deter him and others from such conduct while keeping the best interests of the community in mind. Deterrent sentences are aimed at deterring not only the offender from further offences but also potential offenders. Specific deterrence is concerned with punishing an offender in the expectation they will not offend again whereas general deterrence is related to the possibility that people in general will be deterred from committing crime by the threat of punishment. An example of ...
Swedenburg, Ted. "Homies in The ‘Hood: Rap’s Commodification of Insubordination." Rpt. in That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. Ed. Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal. New York, NY: Routledge, 2004. 579-591. Print.
Blair, M Elizabeth. "Commercialization of the Rap Music Youth Subculture." Rpt. in That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. Ed. Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal. New York, NY: Routledge, 2004. 497-504. Print.
Deterrence – is connected to punishment where it is a way to let a person who has committed a crime know and to let the rest of society or those looking to commit a crime know it will not be tolerated or accepted and there is the possibility of some form of punishment. (Stojkovic and Lovell 2013) If a person or society sees what can happen if they commit a crime by seeing what happens to others then they are more likely to obey the laws and live an honest lifestyle.
Specific deterrence applies specifically to individual offenders who have been previously sentenced. The severity of the punishment for an offence should keep the specific one individual from reoffending (Siegel et al, 2013, p.83). This focuses on individuals.
Deterrence prevents future crime by alarming the defendant or the public. The two types of deterrence are specific and general deterrence. Specific deterrence applies to an individual defendant, when the government punishes an individual defendant, he/she is theoretically less likely to commit another crime because
Deterrence is the intention to prevent future crimes from taking place, becoming split into two specific types of deterrence, general and specific. General deterrence is “actions that take place to persuade other persons from committing criminal acts” (Couture, 2014, p. 128). While specific deterrence is “punishments aimed at stopping...
Richardson, Jeanita W., Kim A. Scott. “Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America’s Culture of Violence in Context.” The Journal of Negro Education 71.3 (2002): 175 – 192.
Hobbs, Beccaria, and Bentham provided the foundation for modern deterrence theory in criminology (Mutchnick, Martin, Austin 2009). Those who support Deterrence Theory are of the opinion that the degree of punishment affects an individual’s choice to obey or violate the law. Beccaria held the belief that the certainty of punishment, even if it is mild in application, would deter individuals from committing crimes more so than the fear of a more severe punishment that is combined with the possibility of impunity. (Mutchnick,et al. 2009). He also emphasized that the type of punishment should fit the crime. Another idea he had regarding the intended objects of punishment is essential to modern criminological sciences. The term “specific deterrence” means that the punishment should act as a deterrent for that individual. “General deterrence” means that if the public sees or hears of punishment that was rendered, the knowledge might deter other citizens from committing similar offenses (Levinson 2002). Both of these types of punishment should deter individuals from committing crimes. Jeremy Bentham believed that three aspects of punishment had an impact on deterrence: severity, celerity (speed) and certainty. In Bentham’s view, punishment was most effective when the level of severity fit the crime and that the punishment occurred
Deterrence suggests that people are “deterred” from a crime by the threat of punishment. In other words, people won’t commit a crime if the ramifications that were to follow are so severe. Deterrence comes in two flavors, specific and general. Specific deterrence refers to the “threat of punishment” being directly aimed towards a particular individual who has already committed the crime through actually experiencing the punishment first hand. An example of this may be, being convicted of a crime and as a result being sentenced to so many years in jail or prison. However, in order for it to be successful, the “previously ...
Even though there are criminals who will weigh the risks of breaking the law and calculate the overall personal gain verse the consequences; the deterrence theory is believed to assist in cutting down on crime. Criminologists contend the certainty of fear of being caught committing a criminal act is enough to discourage violation of the law.