In Richard B. Felsons’ Another cost of being a young black male: Race, weaponry, and lethal outcomes in assaults, the reader is meant to understand the fact that most of the time violent crime is intraracial. A main talking point during the first week of lecture is the idea that crime is an expression of fear. Felson can be seen pointing to this idea in the beginning of the article when he states that “evidence suggests that blacks are generally more likely to carry guns and knives than whites” (Felson, Painter-Davis 2012). I feel as though this suggestion relates to blacks in inner cities more than anywhere because those locations prove to be hot spots for crime which would make all the more sense to why blacks would feel the need to carry weapons on them more often than whites. This proves to be a continuous circle of problems for blacks in these communities because when most of them feel the need to carry weapons, if and when something goes down they are going to defend themselves with these weapons leading to more intraracial assaults and crimes furthering the evidence that been shown that most crimes do happen intrarace. If criminals in general know that blacks are more likely to carry these types of weapons when they are out and about living their lives, they will most likely be more aggressive to blacks knowing that they will in turn defend themselves with a gun instead of just being unarmed and able to do anything. I believe that this can contribute a fair amount to the reasons behind there being some many assaults and armed robbery attempts towards blacks as a whole. Minorities are overrepresented in the criminal justice system because of many different factors I believe, some could think this is because the criminal justice system is systematically racist in how they go about doing things, while others have an idea that because blacks and other minorities are more likely to carry weapons on a daily basis that this leads to more violent crime because we know that most crime is intraracial it goes back to everything occurring in one big circle with crime and the criminal justice system. Stereotyping is a major problem in the criminal justice field and it pretty much has always been this way.
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The article has a whole section of the article based on stereotyping which just shows the reader how important this issue truly is in the field in general. “Offenders may feel threatened when the victim is a young black male, but not when the victim is a black female or an older black. A number of scholars have suggested that people are most likely to stereotype young black males as dangerous” (Anderson, 1990, Dunier, 1992, Gibbs, 1988, Lemelle, 1994 and Lyman, 1994). This, to me, is a major issue that is brought up quite a bit when discussing issues within the criminal justice in general as well as just with the way people live their lives. This is the most “popular” stereotype that I personally have seen in my life because I mostly have white friends and things that I have heard and seen push towards this major stereotype. Whether my friends realize it or not they were racially stereotyping our black classmates sometimes without even thinking about it. The “Adversary effects” portion of the article really intrigued me because it was not something that I thought about before this. “The code encourages young people in these communities to adopt an aggressive posture to avoid victimization and to respond with aggression when confronted. Even youth who are not otherwise prone to use violence follow the code of the streets. Their behavior is adaptive and tactical, a consequence of their spatial proximity to potentially dangerous adversaries.” (Felson, Painter-Davis 2012). The idea that young black men are raised to believe that they need to act as tough and aggressive as they can really shows the main issue that brings about this effect. The face to face confrontation really pushes the adversary effect to its full potential because it opens up both parties for a very physical and violent confrontation if both have been led to believe that they need to be act as aggressive and as “big” as possible. This all goes back to the
The article has a whole section of the article based on stereotyping which just shows the reader how important this issue truly is in the field in general. “Offenders may feel threatened when the victim is a young black male, but not when the victim is a black female or an older black. A number of scholars have suggested that people are most likely to stereotype young black males as dangerous” (Anderson, 1990, Dunier, 1992, Gibbs, 1988, Lemelle, 1994 and Lyman, 1994). This, to me, is a major issue that is brought up quite a bit when discussing issues within the criminal justice in general as well as just with the way people live their lives. This is the most “popular” stereotype that I personally have seen in my life because I mostly have white friends and things that I have heard and seen push towards this major stereotype. Whether my friends realize it or not they were racially stereotyping our black classmates sometimes without even thinking about it. The “Adversary effects” portion of the article really intrigued me because it was not something that I thought about before this. “The code encourages young people in these communities to adopt an aggressive posture to avoid victimization and to respond with aggression when confronted. Even youth who are not otherwise prone to use violence follow the code of the streets. Their behavior is adaptive and tactical, a consequence of their spatial proximity to potentially dangerous adversaries.” (Felson, Painter-Davis 2012). The idea that young black men are raised to believe that they need to act as tough and aggressive as they can really shows the main issue that brings about this effect. The face to face confrontation really pushes the adversary effect to its full potential because it opens up both parties for a very physical and violent confrontation if both have been led to believe that they need to be act as aggressive and as “big” as possible. This all goes back to the