Exploration of a Journal Article in Sociology-Research paper - Essay Example

Singh, Rashmee “In Between the System and the Margins: Community Organizations, Mandatory Charging and Immigrant Victims of Abuse.” Canadian Journal of Sociology, 35 (1), 31-62This journal article is an exploratory research into the lives of ‘abused immigrant women’ (Singh, 2010). Here, the author instead of interviewing the women themselves chooses to interview the community based organizations, groups and individuals who provide protection and care to these victims. Through an interesting use of observation, listening and field experiences, an attempt is made to understand why the criminal justice system’s intervention into the lives of abused immigrant women has failed to leave a mark.

The author however does warn her audience that this study cannot be generalized mainly due to the fact that the sample size is too small to be a representation of the universe. Nevertheless, she hopes the insight and in-depth information provided in his article will shed new light into arenas which have so far been neglected.The author in her paper initially paints a murky picture of an abused immigrant victim who is reluctant to come out and seek help from authorities because of the shame and bias attached to such a revelation.

However, over the course of the article it is revealed that the criminal justice system while punishing women abuse perpetuators with mandatory charging fail to understand the vulnerable position they leave abused immigrant women in, once the accused has been arrested. According to the author, most immigrant women believe themselves to become more susceptible after the perpetuator’s arrest, mainly due to their unpredictable immigration status, separation by the community, economic and language dependency and barriers to employment.

The women assume that if the perpetuator of abuse is removed from home they would have no one else to rely on and they may fall at the mercy of unknown men. Having identified this flaw in the administration of justice the author turns to community-based organizations to fill the gap of protection and support that abused immigrant women, so need. Using the interview method, the author interviewed two field staff and seven executive directors from eight different organizations, in Toronto. She also augmented her findings with ethnographic observations and interviews of participants from a day-long workshop on improving community based services provided to abused immigrant women.

She truly believes that at a stage where the police merely behave aggressively and without concern for the aggrieved, it is the community based organizations with an active feminist base who treat the aggrieved as individuals and lead them through a process of self actualization. While these organizations raise the awareness quotient of the clients, they help them make informed decisions and stand in for them, whenever needed. They also provide the women with a much needed dependency link which connects them to lawyers and various other systems which they require over the course of their new life ahead.

In this article, the author considers the reality of violence that exists in the lives of many abused immigrant women and talks of possibilities of coping with or ending this violence. Based on her work experience and supported by qualitative methods of research she proposes initiatives that could go a long way in transforming the notions of ownership surrounding women abuse. This article addresses directly the community based organizations and considers them this agent of transformation. This article has a narrative quality that at times seems quite similar to that used in news articles and magazine articles.

However, the author for the purpose of this article uses previous research done in similar fields to reiterate her arguments and make them more legitimate, her information remains rooted and very field oriented, driven probably from her personal experiences and those of her respondents. The article all in all, is a passive piece on the lives and times of immigrant women who come to foreign lands seeking security and protection and are let down by the vagaries of life.