Cultural Approaches to Poverty, Gangs, and Drug Wars - Assignment Example

Exam responses I. Cultural Approaches to poverty: a) Oscar theorizes culture of poverty that poverty is transmitted across generations by culture. His sees culture as the vehicle through which poverty is propagated and transmitted. b) A culture of poverty is characterized by a present time situation, feelings of powerlessness against fate, stereotypical masculinity, lack of community or class-consciousness and anti-intellectualism. c) The structural theory holds that poverty is as an outcome of macro-economic structures that exist in the society. For instance, capitalism that causes inequality and poverty. d) The evidence suggests that different social classes develop values and attitudes that differ from other social class. These values are meant for survival within that cultural-class. e) Generally, cultural transmission from one generation to the next occurs through norms, values, customs, traditions, behaviors and cultural attitudes. f) There is a perceived possibility that poor parents might transmit values and beliefs in their children so that these children might accept poverty as a way of life, that is transmitted through cultures rather than a situation specific condition g) Schools and neighborhood are often regarded as important mechanisms for transmitting societal values, norms and knowledge that are considered valuable in the society. By choosing what to teach and what to transmit, these two institutions modify cultural beliefs h) Cultural traits seek to change the social and physical situations under which normal society operates. Thus once a cultural trait becomes adaptive, it influences how a culture is stored and transmitted in a society. “Code of the Streets” is a set of informal rules that rules interpersonal public conduct. As such, these codes allow persons that are inclined to violent acts to commit violence in a loosely approved manner. i) Apart from mere communication with other persons, language and dialect justifies how people relate to each other and determines what people become in the future. j) The concept defines a cultural rejection of conformity to the conditions of norms and values in the society. Criminal groups can be regarded as an example. k) Over the years, black communities have seen an increase in women headed households. This population proportionately consists of single mothers increasing the poverty index. l) AFDC program was replaced by the TANF program in 1996 after realizing that it was more focused on making women have more children rather than controlling poverty. Charles Murray’s criticism of the AFDC program through his book entitled “Losing the Ground: America Social Policy 1950-1980” criticized the program that it was creating a societal culture of social dependency thereby making women to have more children m) Single-motherhood is explained by three theoretical approaches: economic, cultural or legal. Hard evidence suggests that, economic theories on women financial empowerment and welfare are the leading causes for single-motherhood. n) Various policy issues have been concentrating on reducing social dependence on aid programs such as TANF so that only emergency aids are offered. However, these changes have not been successful as the poverty gap still widens. At the same time, faith-based organizations have been hindering poverty reduction mechanisms as they emphasize abandoning of birth control approaches. o) Every culture has its own value systems that define the unique cultural characteristics of that culture. In his concept, Small argues that significant studies into narratives, repertoires and cultural frames are important in describing the evolution path of poverty and the coping mechanisms associated with it. On the other hand, the “culture of poverty” as developed by Lewis proposes that society develops value system that propagates poverty and to its members. It did not offer mechanisms to deal with poverty and sees society just to perpetuate already established poverty mechanisms. II. Gangs Gangs are usually due to the effects of immigration of new ethnic groups into a new territory that are often poor and resented by dominant groups. The various reasons for gang formation differ from one ethnic group to the next, and may be due to protection, pride or revenue. a) Significantly, the ban on gang formation around 1980s-1990s led to a considerable reduction in the number of gang groupings formed per year, while others became more organized in making money. b) Some gang units became more organized with making and availing drugs to make money into varying scopes from the local to the international level, while others concentrated on a more organized crime like bank robbery. c) Gangs are mainly joined by youths, drug players and prisoners of small size, and not much organized. Primarily, the initial formation of gangs does not cause much alarm as most are involved in petty crime and drug dealing at the street level to provide for revenue, protection or belonging. d) The modern gang is more complex and organized with varied objectives that guide their formation and structure. The basic street gang seems to be loosely organized operating at the local level extorting money and selling drugs, while the highly complex gangs operate at different regional levels in the form of warlords and drug peddlers. Gang types and structures differ in age, physical outlook, fighting ability, violence and police case. e) Depending on the nature of a gang organization, type, structure and their motives, gangs usually make from little to voluminous amounts of money f) Gangs seem to be a pertinent issue in the US with about 25,000-30,000 gang units and about 1,000,000 members, with Los Angeles is having the highest proportion in terms of gang membership in the US and Chicago is leading the pack in terms of numbers per capita, and the gang units contributing about 10-15% of total adult crimes committed. Generally, most gang units do not last beyond one year. g) The policy of social reconstruction seeks to address underlying societal causes of gangs’ and why people get into gangs and try to correct these situations for social empowerment. h) Gangs typically fight for leadership, power and control of resources and the gang unit itself. Drug markets propel this fight due to the huge financial transactions involved in them and desire to hide their dealings III. Drugs and Drug war a) The drug problem in the US is at high levels with about 22 million (8%) of the total population taking drugs as of 2009 statistics. This proportion is made up of teenagers and young adults especially in urban areas with differentials in the race. These people mostly take illicit drugs and heroin at highest and lowest rates respectively with varying addictions. b) The social construction approach seeks to unearth the underlying social motives to drug use and formulate mechanisms in social rehabilitation and reconstruction in observed undesirable social behaviors. c) Policy images of drug users are Crack-field crime for blacks, Meth for rural poor whites, The 60s and the psychedelics, and the Refer Madness. These policies seek to influence ban on drug use and strengthen social healing and rehabilitation, with various agencies established to deal with drug menace. d) The size of drug market seems difficult to precisely quantify, but is estimated at about $6 billion annually in terms of revenue that is non-taxed. e) Containing drug menace costs the taxpayer approximately $40 billion annually, with an additional $22,000 spent per prison per year in terms of incarceration costs. f) Some of the supply side policies include: Minnows v Big fish, R.I.C.O statutes, and the International interdiction plan of Columbia g) Demand side policies: Education and prevention programs that champion for public education and awareness on the effects of drugs, Tough on crime policies and treatment plans. h) Criminals have more money than cops have, and are less concerned about the constitution, the resultant effect is that criminals bribe cops thus creating an organized crime web where all law enforcers and breakers are interrelated. i) Alternative approach in dealing with drug issues involves adopting the harm reduction approach that encompasses decriminalization, education on safe usage, treatment and needle exchange programs among other available interventions j) Proponents for marijuana legalization argue that among other things, the drug trade can be taxed to provide a source of revenue to a country, the drug use can be regulated and managed through recognized legal channels, its considered less harmful than alcohol, the drug is not physically addictive, there can be responsible use when it comes to marijuana use and that the process saves money on enforcement and incarceration On the other hand, opponents of the marijuana legislation argue that: legalizing the drug will make it gateway drug, the drug will be misused, widespread addiction will be witnessed across the many user population, it will lead to labor productivity and finally it will result to pscychopharmacological effects. IV. Crime General and Incarceration a) Generally, crime rates rose steadily from 1970-1990, rising sharply in 1990 and falling sharply from the period thereafter. The steady rise in 1990 can be attributed to poor economic conditions and high prevailing rates of poverty. A steady fall in crimes from 1990 can be attributed to various theories that include increased incarceration rates, end of the crack epidemic, gun control and gun reduction policies, changes in police tactics in dealing with crime, improvements in economic conditions, and legalization of abortion. b) The leading theories for reduced crime rates include incarceration, economic, abortion and policing theories. Supporting evidence for incarceration include increased incarceration rates from 100-700 per 100,000 from the mid 1970s to the present time, the high number of persons entering prisons and staying for only 24months, thus the increased incarceration have risen in the face of reduced crime rates On the economic front there has been due to increased economic conditions thus creating more rooms for employment and wage earnings therefore reducing property and drug crimes Abortion on the other hand, had little effect on reducing crime rates as fertility rates did not generally decline even after legalizing abortion. Subsequently, changes in policing techniques such as community policing, broken windows and Camp Stat also contributed to the reduced reported rates. c) The concept of fluid varies from person to person and only defined by each person’s unique perception of the matter at hand. It follows therefore that people approach the subject of reality as determined by the kind of perceptions they have about life or what they have undergone. People’s experience with and perceptions have therefore made the crime issue much a steep with reality. This perception vs. reality therefore seeks to define what policy measure people should accept and which ones is undesirable therefore weakening or strengthening some of the public policies. d) Alternative approaches to policing: inculcating moral to children in the community, establishing community policing programs and arming all community members so that all community members are armed this will discourage criminals when they know all are armed. e) The incarceration rates in the US have been on the significant rise, and currently the US is the leading country in the world in incarceration rates. In comparison to other countries, Russia has the second incarceration rates, while Canada and China come in position 100th and above. At the same time, 37% of African-American who were high school dropouts were incarcerated in 2008. Increased incarceration rates were attributed to tough conditions set for crimes especially for drug use, arrest rates remained stable, and there have been more convictions per arrest, and longer prison sentences and mandatory minimums. f) When compared among various races, whites have least rates of incarceration at 5%, followed by Latinos at 12% while the African-American hold the huge percentage at 26%. Education seems to be a decelerating factor to incarcerate with college students being least susceptible and high school dropouts being more susceptible. Similarly, male in the age brackets of 20-30 are more susceptible compared to females. g) Incarceration has been perceived to harm a person’s likelihood of employment in the future, further it can solidify deviant behaviors thus making one become a better criminal in the future, makes more disadvantaged people become more vulnerable and leads to recidivism. Subsequently, incarceration leads to a cycle of poverty transfer among the family members from the parents to the children. h) Dealing with incarceration: job training and education programs while in prison, helping the incarcerated members re-enter the society and providing alternative sentencing procedures. Read More