Analysis Of Punished: Policing The Lives Of Black And Latino Boys By Rios

In part 1 of Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys, Rios focuses on the ‘hypercriminalization’ of a particular group of interest living in Oakland, California. Not only does he believe that hypercriminalization is the “primary form of social control in several marginalized communities,” (20), but he also believes that it is so integrated into their day to day lives that its presence is virtually unnoticeable to them. This being said, it is clear that the main theory or set of theories that are most applicable to the text so far would be the conflict theories of deviance and crime. Conflict theory in this case mainly focuses on deviance and power relations. Laws are created to benefit those in power, making the actions of those less in power appear deviant by default. The resulting bias that is created through this system is clear to Rios as he shadows a few of the boys in his study and hears about their every day interactions with law enforcement. …show more content…
At the time, law enforcement did not appear to think much of him or his friend who had just died but rather blamed the incident on him. Rios makes a point of saying that this point was the defining moment where he developed a sociological imagination and realized that he needed to find out more in regards to the interactions between youths of his community and the police, (xi). Unlike the boys that he talks about, Rios was lucky and had resources at school who were both inspiring and encouraging of him by advocating for endangered youths. At the end, he pinpoints his argument that criminalization as a “central, pervasive, and ubiquitous phenomenon that impacted the everyday lives of young people he studied in Oakland,”