Analysis Of Punished By Victor Rios

Punished was written by Victor Rios and published in 2011. Rios wrote the book to chronicle the challenges young black and Latino boys faced within their improvised, highly criminalized neighborhoods. Rios grew up in Oakland, California and lived in the ghettos, mainly a poor, minority community; he was also a gang member involved in his fair share of trouble. Rios began looking for answers to the plights he and his community endured after the murder of his friend while they ran from a rival gang member. A conversation with the police whom Rios claimed told him they wanted the gangs to kill each other off, made him seek answers to the prevalence of violence that plagues poor populations.
Rios wants others to realize that mutual understanding …show more content…
Youth control complex is different institutions coming together and lending to the negative stigmas tied to young men and agreeing to marginalize them, and then punish them. Social incapacitation is about preventing certain populations of people from living with dignity as they interact with institutions like courts, law enforcement, and schools. Rios certainly proved this with the many examples throughout his book. His perceptions show he understand the boys’ plight. Rios’ own dealings with the criminal justice system allow him to articulate how the present treatment of his subjects will more likely than not shape their future. He writes with the hope that policymakers create approaches that encompasses change between the community, social control agents, and families. These approaches should also include the boys to produce redefined plans aimed at steering them away from the negative social contexts from which they live and …show more content…
It points out that the young men live in two different worlds that each place tremendous pressures on them. On the one hand, they have to be tough to survive on the streets, they do their best to defile the systems in place to control them, a system that does not understand them and seek to punish and incorrectly label them. They must also juggle wanting for better more productive lives but face socioeconomic barriers, poverty and stigmatization, and constant discrimination. In the end, they continue to do what social control institutions expects of them, act delinquently and attempt to beat and make a fool of the systems they are smart enough to know is wrong about them. Perhaps the policy makers who read Rios’ book and compare it to the Bureau of Justice Statistics data that show high numbers of minority males arrested and jailed, might begin to implement cost effective programs that promote change for the better. In addition, federal grant awards to social institutions that implement best practices, which break down barriers that separate marginalized youth, and authorities’ governmental bodies in charge of law and order, will be the new norm for these