Theories on Race and Gender Affiliation - Research Paper Example

RACEFEM There are various theories based on race and sex which have been studied, in historical context and regarding fundamental definitions of human nature, social order, crime, and theory vs. reality. Generally, the factor that unites these discourses is one of shared discrimination, stemming from stereotypes involving African-Americans and women. At the same time that the society in America was evolving through Civil Rights and equalization of opportunity, these stereotypes turned out to be persistent within law enforcement in many cases. So the pattern kept continuation, and this led to a situation where, “Many of the most notable advances in policing brought about by the advent of the reform era proved to be elusive, if not counterproductive, for minorities. Several of the hiring and promotional standards… proved to be detrimental to blacks, just at a time when they were beginning to acquire the credentials” (Mann, 2000). Faced with a situation like this, it is very difficult for the minority, whether it is by race or sex, to have a positive view and still be realistic in a way that makes them feel like a sane member of society in light of ethnicity, gender and perceived offense. Considering patterns of police control and oppression of minority populations, particularly African American juveniles, looking at this issue also means that a person must briefly consider the issue of age as well as race discrimination and profiling. This perspective is centered around describing the mechanics of incidents with minorities where officers supposedly use their reasonable discretion. But you have to look for answers not only in documented cases of criminal behavior of minority juveniles, but also in the overwhelming majority of cases in which juveniles are contacted but not arrested. It is this majority of cases which provide the most social control, in terms of how the individual sees themselves balanced against the forces of the society. On the other hand, these cases could also provide the most support for labeling theory or stereotyping between police officers and minorities, which basically states that deviance creates itself through authority’s perception or supposition of deviant behavior. That is, labeling makes particularly juveniles more likely to go towards a social notion of themselves as being delinquent, often on superficial cues, and this creates a vicious cycle in which recidivism or repeat offending increases in proportion to how much it is expected. There are also social and economic factors to consider: “We find that victims from disadvantaged neighborhoods are significantly more likely to resist forcefully when they are assaulted. Finally they found that persons in these areas were more likely to use guns… leadership is confirmed by a stint in prison” (Adler, 2000). This is often part of a minority youth culture in which so called normal society is turned upside down, and it is the police who are viewed as the criminals, and the criminals who are viewed as the just. This is an element that will also be considered in interstices with gender later on in the current report. Minorities’ opinions of the police are also impacted negatively because in some cases, social control is determined through discretion as it is used by the officer’s power to either pursue or not to pursue charges against the offenders. Offenders can be divided into three basic categories: those perpetuating undetected crimes, those perpetuating detected but unsanctioned crimes (apparently, in this case, the majority), and those perpetuating sanctioned crimes (investigations and arrests). There is a lot of scholarship about the issue of minorities perspective of the police and the criminal justice system as it currently exists in the United States, and reasons for it being so negative. Some of the scholarship is scientific and other perspectives are more personal or case study in their basis. Some people look for history and the law to explain, while others take case examples. But basically what most sources seem to recognize is that there is a definite connection between ethnicity and criminology in the US, based on historical factors and the comprehensive study of a topic which might be generally called that of ethnic offenders, with a focus on African American and Hispanic or Latino ethnicities, in terms of different perceptions and expectations within the law enforcement and justice systems. The perception of ethnic offenders has a lot to do with the direct study of the history of the US. A lot of people tend to forget that not long ago, most of the south was completely segregated, and women could only be teachers, waitresses, and secretaries; not long before that, people actually owned black people as slaves who had no human rights and no protection at all under the law, and women couldn’t vote. In other words, these weren’t the people who the American political, legal, and law enforcement systems were interested in protecting and serving historically. “LaFree and Russell acknowledge that all roads in American criminology eventually lead to issues of race. What is not so readily acknowledged by those who dare to study race and crime in America is the intentional role that government has played in establishing the race-crime connection” (Oliver, 2000). People like to think that the old days are over today, and that we live in a more enlightened society where there is equality, opportunity and justice for everyone. But people also have to remember when the Constitution was written, and what it ever actually meant in reality. In other words, there is the ideal, and then there is the real situation. And often there is a very big and wide gulf between reality and the world of the imagination. The fact of minorities having a negative view of the police goes back into history, when really they could do nothing but. This is because the police system in America up to fairly recent times (arguably) was totally and institutionally biased against them, and treated them unfairly in ways that were blatant and not hidden. To view the police with a positive view in such a context, when police routinely mistreated them, harassed them, killed them, and did all this with impunity, would be complete idiocy. Think of a history where your grandparents were beaten by police for drinking from the wrong water fountain, and then wonder why you might view the police negatively. This issue can be analyzed in terms of relationships between people, especially in low income or ghettoized areas, because they have to struggle to get by in the face of encroaching poverty. This is also made clear in the external society by the examinations of the typical poverty-stricken family. “Suffice it to say that as a chronic stressor, poverty contributes to distress in the form of economic hardships, poor accessibility to health care, limited resources, feelings of powerlessness, and low educational achievement” (Anderson, 2000). The society under regard also shows vestiges of other stated types of stress. In the case of the former, major life events such as poverty conditions disconnect with the society form stress in the lives of individuals. And higher level stress is perhaps best shown in the typical financially stressed individual who undergoes many daily stressors and winds up being easily triggered by the misbehavior of others. This leads to a cycle of problems which could include clinical depression. “Evidence from studies on all racial groups does suggest that depression is linked to the experience of life events but factors such as the predictability, controllability, and desirability of the event moderate the effect of depression” (Anderson, 2000). In many cases, poverty and racism work together to hold people back from their potential and this situation creates psychological problems. There is also the issue of the conflation of public relations in areas of poverty and lower socio-economic status with immigrant and minority groups in the U.S. There is still a racial divide in the country between whites and minorities regarding the percentages of these demographic populations who are faced with issues of poverty, bad housing, unstable communities, crime, and drug use. Many argue that the uneven distribution of wealth in the country should not be a reflection of what some call the uneven distribution of opportunity. People must be willing to get these issues out into the open in terms of advocacy, as well as implementing programs that help not just a select group of people, but all people. Women have been seen in terms of crime and deviance in a similar way to minorities and African Americans, with gender equality in general, which is mentioned as a possible obstacle in several studies, in terms of women being possibly predisposed to get less recommendations and have less contact with active sexual discrimination than other populations. Education about aggression and sexual discrimination may be a solution to this problem because it does not require a lot of effort, but it does require at least that the individual is educated about how to get along with others. However, there are also studies which question the overall effectiveness of educational procedures in general, in terms of their ability to make an impact on sexually discriminatory behavior. So this must also be reflected on the survey, to measure attitudes and beliefs about the other side of the issue as well as the more often presented one. Therefore, in the research, participants are given a balanced mix of questions regarding both positive and negative aspects of the abovementioned issues. “The empirical assertions concerning the pattern of crime for black and white males and females are examined using victim survey data. It was concluded that the explanations for racial differences in female crime and delinquency advanced by Adler have little value since the empirical differences they purport to explain are not supported by the data” (Young, 2006). In America, women have faced sex and gender discrimination due to stereotypes, because traditionally the role of the state has been the role of the patriarch, as the enforcer of sexual discrimination. After Civil Rights in the 60s, the role of the state changed somewhat and there was a lot of hope, combined with the women’s liberation movement, that there was finally going to be equality. Congress passed laws like Title VII to prent discrimination based on race, gender, or religious reasons. But underneath the surface the state continued to act as the patriarchy. Patriarchy is used to define the control and social control mechanisms of the state in terms of gender, stating that males are in a position of power and women in one of sublimation. Patriarchy can be applied to the role of the state in women’s issues to explain inequities in the system. The survey accounts for the social roles that men and women occupy and how this relates to respondents’ ideas about gender differences and sex differences. Questions include issues such as role strain theory and role confguration theory, in terms of differences of opportunity between women and men. It is hoped that the modern person will take away with them an awareness that discrimination, prejudice, and stereotyping do not only effect ethnic and racial issues and issues as shown in the society, but also effect peoples’ religious, gender, and sexual identities. Many believe that stereotyping is at the root of the problem from history onwards to today, because it is one thing that has stayed the same over so many years. If people were more educated about people in what they consider to be out-groups, they would be less likely to stereotype the people who make up these groups. Gender or sex discrimination is a serious problem in American society, as seen in examples of continued unequal pay among supposed equals in the workplace and discrimination on the management and executive levels. Prejudice is the negatively attributed cause of such discriminatory action, and it frequently involves perceiving negative out-group populations as being “all the same” and seeing one’s own in-group as being somehow innately superior and less “the same” than the others. Unfortunately the years haven’t changed this. If they had, women would be in a position of real equality in today’s modern world. Issues like these are all reflected on the survey for the respondent sample of general literature on the issue. “Although a general description of the female offender and her victimization is relatively easy to deduce, there are, as this report has demonstrated, important relationships by race between offender characteristics that affect differences in the victimization interaction involving black and white female offenders.” (Oliver, 2000). In other words, just as with racial discrimination, there are differences between individual women. To profile women criminals in one way or another is to deny their essentiality, and to engage in stereotyping. There is already too much of this stereotyping in the system, which, as the class readings show, has led to a system in which minorities and women face different, non equitable treatment based on factors they can’t control. REFERENCE Adler, F (2000). Sisters in crime. Criminological Theory Past to Present. Cullen and Agnew, eds. Anderson, A (2000). Code of the streets. African American Classics in Criminology & Criminal Justice. Gabbidon, Greene, and Young eds. Mann, C (2000). Minority and female. African American Classics in Criminology & Criminal Justice. Gabbidon, Greene, and Young eds. Oliver, W (2000). Black males and social problems. African American Classics in Criminology & Criminal Justice. Gabbidon, Greene, and Young eds. Young, V (2000). Women, Race, and Crime. African American Classics in Criminology & Criminal Justice. Gabbidon, Greene, and Young eds. Read More