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The influence of media on crime
How crime was distorted by media
Prison overcrowding in us
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During the Destabilization phase, which occurred between 1960 and 1975, consisted on political individuals, policy makers, and other important bureaucrats started to question what was known as the “penal status quo”. During this time frame there were numerous new opportunities being formed, due to the civil rights initiatives as well as anti-war protests. These opportunities were not necessarily positive; these opportunities were starting to modify the penal and political fields. These changes created the perfect environment for what was termed as emergent crime politics. This basically is when a political leader or runner is benefiting off of crime to gain ground politically. This then caused a response at a state level to actually define …show more content…
During this time there were countless white individuals that were leaving the Democratic Party to go towards the Republican Party. The reasoning behind this shift is that African Americans were fighting for their civil rights. In turn, politically, there was a correlation formed between race and crime. This was a turning point in the relationship that the federal and state level shared. The state level thought that it was the civil rights protestor who were to blame for the higher crime. However, on a federal level, these individuals thought that integration would be dangerous, as well as increasing the crime. The Presidential candidates during this time frame were extremely focused on a tough on crime stance, and began to fully support and blame African Americans for this issue. There was most certainly tension between the Republicans running on this platform and the African American citizens (Campbell and Schoenfeld, …show more content…
This political influence was significant due to the heavy shift in crime control and perception. Next, federal crime control programs during this phase influenced incarceration by focusing on crime, even though it was declining. President Reagan began to focus even more on this us versus them thought process which caused a divide. Then the media kicked in, the media played a sensational role in getting society to believe that crime was a significant problem that needed to be handled federally. Moving on to federal court enforcement, during this era, there was a significant increase in the prison population due to the war on drugs. There were some states that did not want to comply however, the Supreme Court intervened and started to focus more on inmates rights (Campbell and Schoenfeld,
Inadvertently Anderson gives us an even bigger lesson about politics in Georgia and the South in general. The Democratic Party was typically seen as the party of the downtrodden for poor farmers and other people who were economically depressed. The poor certainly saw them as their political savior. However, the party support only extended to white Georgians and particularly to white males without having their best interests at heart, only their best interests as perceived and allowed by the political elite. Some of the issues that made Talmadge disenfranchised with the Democratic Party under Roosevelt like setting wage levels, dependence on the federal government, fighting outside interference in "his" state, and especially desegregation subsequently forced many southern Democrats out of the party later. When the Democratic Party found itself without the paternalistic southern white male and the downtrodden white males' allegiance, it was forced to search for support from what they perceived to be the next group of downtrodden voters instead of redefining their issues.
Increased tensions during the 1960s in the context of the Civil Rights Movement started to cause an increase in crime, sparking a newfound belief in incarcerating the masses to prevent more crime from occurring. During the 1970s, the likelihood of being incarcerated increased for nearly every citizen, especially low-level offenders. Clear and Frost thoroughly explain that the Punishment Imperative in the 1980s was caused by changes in government “policies and practices associated with the increasingly ubiquitous War on Drugs” (31). Changes in sentencing guidelines, mandatory minimum sentences, and three strikes legislation were though to be initially helpful in decreasing the rate of incarceration, but they proved to do the exact opposite. Policies also regarding reentry into society, access to education, public housing, and child custody for ex-convicts continued to play a major role in the increase in incarceration because newly released convicts had an extremely difficult time reintegrating into society. Clear and Frost continue to argue their point as they reach incapacitation in the 1990s, where they discuss how the government focused generally on increasing the lengths of stay within prisons instead of increasing the amount of people being incarcerated. Clear and Frost use quantitative data to explain the government policy called
We saw the Thirteenth Amendment occur to abolish slavery. We also saw the Civil Rights Acts which gave full citizenship, as well as the prohibiting the denial of due process, etc. Having the civil rights laws enabled African Americans to new freedoms which they did not used to have. There was positive change occurring in the lives of African Americans. However, there was still a fight to suppress African Americans and maintain the racial hierarchy by poll taxes and lengthy and expensive court proceedings. Sadly, this is when Jim Crow laws appeared. During this time African Americans were losing their stride, there was an increase in prison populations and convict labor, and the convicts were
After the war, issues of race weren't ignored. Black men had come back from a war were they were treated like men. They still weren't treated as equally as whites, but they were treated better during the war than they were back home where they were treated like objects. This gave them more motivation to demand equality when they returned. But after the war, white hostility towards blacks increased. This became a dichotomy when there was competition for low wage jobs between the blacks and whites. There was also black encroachment into white neighborhoods. The whites d...
The main topic that we get from this idea is popular punitivism. Popular punitivism is a process that is used all over the world to try and control crime. It is a concept that balances coercion and consent that uses movements that are with the popular opinion “to engage in vote buying and power maintenance” (Makin). The idea of this is that officials focus crimes that the public is seeing more often than usually. Looking at Cohen’s deviancy amplification process can help explain this better. The process shows that when the media begins to talk more about a certain crime then the public thinks that that particular crime rate is rising and the clear up rate is falling. After this the fear of crime increasing and there begins to be a mass panic. The officials see this panic and focus their attention on the punishment of that crime. New legislations are created that impose more severe punishments so that the officials can show the community that they see what is going on and they are trying to fix it. Citizens believe that if the officials are tough on the crime than the problem will go away. However, we know that the problem does not just go away and now that we have harsher penalties there are more people being thrown into
This political shift was materialized with the advent of the Southern Strategy in which Democrat president Lyndon Johnson’s support of Civil Rights harmed his political power in the South, Nixon and the republican party picked up on these formerly blue states and promoted conservative politics in order to gain a larger voter representation. Nixon was elected in a year drenched in social and political unrest as race riots occurred in 118 U.S cities at the aftermath of Martin Luther King’s murder, as well as overall American bitterness due to the assassination of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and the extensive student-led activist opposition to the Vietnam War.
Through the first chapter of this book the focus was primarily on the notion of controlling crime. The best way to describe crime policy used in this chapter is comparing it to a game of ‘heads I win, tails you lose’. This chapter also addresses the causes for decline in America’s
This is due to the fact that during the time that the Civil Rights Movement was being seen as a treat, there was also an increase in crime so conservatives tried to use rising crime rates to crack down on poor black communities. The problem was that crime rates weren’t increasing because of the Civil Rights Movement, but because of the “baby boom” generation. Additionally the president preceding these events did not help to better the situation of the people of color. For example, Richard Nixon, who was running for presidency during this unstable time, used the instability of the American people to his advantage and targeted mostly whites to vote for him. Therefore, Nixon was able to create yet another wedge between the races, but this time it wasn’t just blacks vs. whites, it was any person of color vs. whites. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton added to this wedge as well, by cracking down on drugs and crime which led to a spike of incarcerations of mostly people of color. Alexander then points out how this constant incarceration of communities of color set the ideal stage for the creation of the New Jim
Even though slaves had been free for almost sixty years, it was still hard to find well paying jobs in other areas nationwide. The lives of African Americans were so well established, the area was coined the “Black Wall Street of America”. You’d think with such well-rounded men and women that something like this would not happen just based on their skin tone, but that is far from true. Whites of the time were still extremely prejudice towards African Americans, despite the reputation they had. It was only a matter of time before something ignited the flame that had been burning for years.
Even worse, the way politicians address crime. The tough stand on drugs started during the Nixon presidency, with most of the resources focused on medical treatment rather than punishment. Although it was a better strategy and alternative than the drug war policies that exist today, it was a very divisive issue between the conservatives and the liberals. The war on drugs ignited during the Reagan administration, two thirds of the financial resources were being spent on law enforcement. In addition, the end of the Cold War left the United States with weaponry and resources that needed to be repurposed.
Blacks were not able to go into white neighborhoods and vice versa. This created a boundary for the African American youth to leave their neighborhoods and reach those goals that are supposed to be met by society's means. These blacks had a feeling of alienation and became culturally disorientated due to the harassment from the cops. They were unable to have a sense of identity and who they really were due to the fact that there was a segregated society being created. These African Americans began to see themselves as having no value and became self hated. Blacks were shown their life has no value and they were rejected. Blacks were being arrested for non-violent crimes and drug offences. People of color have been targeted. This punitive impulse to punish folks of color is linked to our discrimination history here in America according to Michelle Alexander. When being swept into the criminal justice system, it comes hard to live a normal life and have a job to succeed a specific standard of living.
Due to that the opposition towards this was heavily influenced. There was, also the denying of voting for women. There was the use of “property qualifications to prevent poor black and white men from voting” (Hine 174). Ensuring the denying of voting to black people, since most of the black community was poor and would never gain enough profit to demonstrate they were capable of voting. Stripping them from their legal right to vote, no matter what circumstances money wise they were in. Due to “the egalitarian movement to remove property qualifications” (Hine 174) the disfranchisement began. According to white race voters the allowing of the black race vote would corrupt the system. Since they “would be encouraged to try to mix socially with white people” (Hine 174). Due to that there was the threat that the voting of the black race would position them in the election to office. Demonstrating the racism there still was. And the unequalness of freedom that African Americans had. Since all the rights they were entitled to were denied to them. Making them feel that the freedom they were enjoying of wasn’t
Mass incarceration has caused the prison’s populations to increase dramatically. The reason for this increase in population is because of the sentencing policies that put a lot of men and women in prison for an unjust amount of time. The prison population has be caused by periods of high crime rates, by the medias assembly line approach to the production of news stories that bend the truth of the crimes, and by political figures preying on citizens fear. For example, this fear can be seen in “Richard Nixon’s famous campaign call for “law and order” spoke to those fears, hostilities, and racist underpinnings” (Mauer pg. 52). This causes law enforcement to focus on crimes that involve violent crimes/offenders. Such as, gang members, drive by shootings, drug dealers, and serial killers. Instead of our law agencies focusing their attention on the fundamental causes of crime. Such as, why these crimes are committed, the family, and preventive services. These agencies choose to fight crime by establishing a “War On Drugs” and with “Get Tough” sentencing policies. These policies include “three strikes laws, mandatory minimum sentences, and juvenile waives laws which allows kids to be trialed as adults.
Johnson, a Democrat himself, looked at the Democratic southern states and saw a great injustice being done. Not for the reason most people today would have a problem with, but because he found a way to benefit from giving black people their basic American rights. To quote the former President, “I’ll have those niggers voting democratic for the next 200 years”. There is some speculation whether or not he said this but it however not even debatable that he enjoyed his use of the “N” word, going as far as to call the Civil Rights Acts, “The Nigger Bill” (MSNBC Johnson). Yes, the Democratic party gave universal suffrage to the African American community but also enacted laws that would begin to diminish the very fabric of their lives. Since the time of Civil Rights movement which made tremendous strides for the African American community, the subsequent laws enacted afterwards by the democratic party have hurt a vast majority of African Americans in Americas inner cities. The education system has been severely damaged, there has been an explosion of drugs in a majority of major cities, also the single parent household has risen from 25 percent during the 1960’s to 75 percent by todays statistics. Two major elements to consider here being education and family, without which, a majority of people would have a severe disadvantage. Fast forward to the twenty first century and the evidence of this is showing. While there are many successful African American men and women in America, the inner city communities are still in a large part impoverished. How could this be and who is to
As mentioned above, prior to 1980, the United States had seen a relatively stable incarceration rate, however, by the time the rates began to grow, the society of the nation had been subjected to a radical period of social and political change. President Ronald Reagan played a substantial role in the demise of rehabilitation practices, as once he declared the War on Drugs in 1982, it profoundly