This is exactly the point that John Braithwaite makes in his thesis,” Crime, Shame, and Reintegration” (1989). In his thesis, Braithwaite lays out the steps to which deviance is committed through the process of shaming criminals. Braithwaite says that shaming a person who has been punished for deviance makes them feel isolated and labeled as a sort of wrong-doer or deviant from the rest of society. Being alienated as criminal, the individual then turns to someone who feels the same way and can support them in ways that the rest of society can’t. Braithwaite calls this interdependency. This interdependency of labeled deviants on others then creates criminal sub-cultures where the perfect environment is created for learning crime. The sub-cultures then commit more crime in spite of their alienation, which, of course, leads to higher crime rates. This can be recognized when Eisenbrey and Tanner talk about the perceptions of the inner-cities. Due to racism and prejudice, a large number of the American population perceive the inner-city residents as not desiring to learn or progress, but rather committing crimes and wasting government aide on committing other crimes. Braithwaite’s theories explain not only a reason why crime is so high in low income cities, but also describes a …show more content…
Before we attempt to fix the problems in high poverty, low income cities today, we must first understand the issues that these segregated individuals deal with on a personal level, both within their cities, and in